Succession Planning: It’s a Data Thing
I read with some interest Gerry Crispin’s post this week about succession planning. Some have suggested that succession planning is a futile exercise — the collection and analysis of data is complex and time consuming. But more importantly, it’s obsolete a month later, because it’s all based on a point-in-time. Plus, information is stored in a remote silo called an Excel spreadsheet (ok, the execs only saw the PowerPoint presentation).
The real challenge is in building an organizational process that exists on its own, supported by a data repository that lives and breathes. That means a consistent effort towards collecting the data (at a minimum an annual assessment that speaks to potential and readiness) and a focus on identifying target jobs for individuals followed tracking each individual’s progress towards that next assignment.
Finally, it fails without the kind of technology that captures the data and effectively allows employees and managers to collaborate with flexibility and ease. Just wait — a couple of companies are going to figure that out, and we’ll be hearing about it on the cover of Business Week. If we’re doing our job right, that company will be a Lawson customer!
Tags: HR technology, hcm, succession management
December 21, 2007 at 8:41 am
Indeed, it is all about data. And even more so, tracking and utilizing it. Luckily we can already see a rise of new generation applications which enable various employee data management and analysis actions. Here the open source sphere is definitely a source to tap into. The new kind of flexibility and innovativeness emerging from it are revolutionizing the development models of enterprise software.
February 11, 2008 at 1:22 am
[...] written about the issues related to capturing and maintaining data (here), but it’s more than that. While organizations seem to be able to ‘manually’ [...]