Succession planning asks how important business functions will continue when a key person is unavailable or leaves. Start with the work and decision-making authority that must be covered, then consider capability, development and approved backup arrangements.
Do not treat a succession worksheet as a private promise of promotion. Future appointments still need the organisation’s applicable approval and recruitment processes.
Identify functions that depend on one person
List responsibilities whose interruption would materially affect operations. Include knowledge, relationships, system access and decision authority, rather than focusing only on senior job titles.
In an original fictional example, one office coordinator understands a recurring supplier reporting process. The business needs to know where instructions are kept, who can prepare the report and who may approve its submission.
Business Queensland’s workforce planning guidance identifies succession planning as part of workforce planning. Apply that broader view to the particular functions your business needs to maintain.
Separate immediate cover from longer development
An immediate absence may require a temporary authorised arrangement. Preparing someone for a future role can require a different development plan, experience and assessment.
Record the time horizon and the actual gap. A person who can follow a routine process may still need support with exceptions, stakeholder decisions or responsibilities outside their present authority.
Do not make the current role-holder responsible for solving every continuity risk alone. Managers need to provide time, access and an appropriate decision about how the work will be shared.
A practical succession worksheet
For each critical function, record:
- Function: the outcome that must continue.
- Dependency: knowledge, access or authority concentrated in one place.
- Immediate arrangement: approved cover and limits, or a gap to resolve.
- Evidence: what shows the proposed cover can perform the work.
- Development: learning or experience still required.
- Authority: decisions that require a separate delegation or appointment.
- Owner: the manager accountable for the plan.
- Review trigger: a role, system or staffing change that requires an update.
Keep individual career or performance information in appropriately restricted records. A general continuity summary need not expose speculative judgments about employees.
Test the arrangement through a safe scenario
For the fictional reporting process, ask what would happen if the coordinator were unavailable on the reporting day. Can the backup locate the current instructions, obtain permitted information and identify the approver?
Use an appropriate simulation or planned cover period. Do not remove oversight from sensitive work merely to test whether someone can cope.
Record the gaps revealed. Missing access may need a systems decision; unclear approval authority needs a manager’s decision; unfamiliar preparation steps may need training. Each problem requires a different action.
Discuss development without guaranteeing an outcome
Talk with employees about interests and development opportunities through the organisation’s normal process. Explain what an activity prepares them to do and what it does not decide about a future vacancy.
Review the plan when responsibilities or people change and after a real cover period. A practical succession plan can show how the business will maintain a function today, what capability it is building for later and which approvals remain outstanding. Naming a potential successor without that evidence leaves the underlying dependency unresolved.
An employee can use a separate career-development plan to discuss interests and learning, without treating inclusion in succession planning as a promised appointment.
