Succession Bench Strength
How many critical roles your bench could really cover, counting each successor once, and where filling one role would empty another.
Reads .xlsx and .csv inside your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and succession plans are the kind of file that should not be.
The succession plan
Drop a spreadsheet here
One row per role and successor with the successor's readiness, or one row per role with Successor 1, Readiness 1, Successor 2 across. Incumbent, critical-role and risk columns all help.
One person is not five successors
Succession coverage is usually the share of critical roles with somebody ready now. The strongest manager in the building is often named for four or five of them, and counts as cover for every one. She can fill one. So beside the usual figure sits the question it skips: if the roles all opened at once, how many could be filled, each successor taking one? That is worked out exactly, as a matching of people to roles, and every role left over is named. It is the most the bench could do, not a forecast of what will happen.
Filling one role can empty another
A successor who already holds a critical role moves the vacancy rather than closing it. Each of those chains is shown with how many are ready behind the role that would be left open, because a chain that ends in nobody is a gap one step removed.
Ready now means now
Readiness arrives written a dozen ways: Ready now, RN, 0 to 12 months, 1 to 2 years, 3+, long term. Each is read into ready now, within two years, or later, and anything that fits none is listed rather than guessed. Emergency or interim cover is somebody who can hold a role for weeks, so it is counted apart and never as a successor. An assessment older than you choose is marked stale.
What this does not do
It does not rate anyone, judge readiness, or say who should succeed whom. It counts what your plan says, finds where the plan counts the same person twice, and leaves the talent decisions with the people who know the talent. The Org Chart Builder draws the structure these roles sit in.