A lightweight process for talent reviews & succession plans
In larger companies, a talent review and succession planning process is often build into the Performance and Development tooling/software. But how do you build leadership talent and succession plans in small/medium sized software businesses?
Below is an easy - lightweight - process that helps an executive team understand the capabilities of their current workforce and to think about the future leaders that can be developed from within (or need to be brought in from outside).
It's important for your executives to shift their thinking away from their current talent needs. Instead, this exercise helps execs assess their talent for when the business has scaled to 3x its current revenue size.
Goals are to:
- Understand the leadership talent, for today and at 3x your current revenue (when the company hits $50M, $100M, $250M).
- Review the succession pipeline and identify possible future leaders deeper in the company to grow, develop and retain.
- Have insights our talent plans across your executive team.
- Gather talent themes for learning and development programs.
Executives do this Talent Review Exercise
Tools to complete talent Review Exercise outlined above
The executive can use the tools below to help them complete the talent review. (I found it useful to run through the exercise using these tools together).
Table A
Table B
Table C
