Technology Succession Planning

You plan the succession of people in your organisation and that plan brings certainty to your organisation. Certainty produces confidence. The plan increases the effectiveness of the new and moved people plus reduces the stress produced by change and the cost of change. You do a little extra work now and save a lot of time later. Technology is rarely given the same succession planning. Save time with a technology succession plan.

Your people spend less time working on change and more time on increasing sales, or decreasing costs, or at home with their children. You plan the succession of people in your organisation, either consciously or unconsciously, and that plan brings certainty to your organisation. Certainty produces confidence. The plan increases the effectiveness of the new and moved people plus reduces the stress produced by change and the cost of change. You do a little extra work now and save a lot of time later, time for being with your children, or being with your partner making children, or mowing the lawn, whatever is your favourite activity.

Consciously prepared plans have the most impact because you can include discussion with the people affected by the change and create a feedback loop that continuously improves your plans. people can begin preparation for change earlier when they know the future, when they know your plan. Small incremental changes are easier and less expensive because people can fit each change in opportunities that arise from their normal daily activity. People can do two things at once when they are complementary and your colleges will find more complementary opportunities when they know the next few steps in advance.

With all the known benefits of succession planning for people, we expect that succession plans for cars will also produce benefits and they do. Organisations with large fleets of vehicles plan changeovers to reduce costs and reduce disruption while increasing efficiency with the new vehicles better matched to your current needs. The same type of plans are prepared for major manufacturing facilities and assembly lines. You get increased efficiency with the minimal changeover cost and minimal loss of time.

The rest of technology is rarely given the same technology succession planning. In the computer department the technology change is often reactive to problems or driven by vendors selling a brilliant new brand for their same old technology. The same happens with communications systems and office tools. The rapid change in personal productivity tools produces little increases in personal productivity for a small percentage of your staff while disrupting most of their colleagues. Working life would be easier if you could make a smaller number of changes and apply those changes as part of the natural work flow within your organisation.

Witness Intel selling the Centrino notebook computer brand. Their advertising sounded like you would receive all the latest benefit of wireless Internet access in a notebook computer just by choosing a notebook computer labelled Centrino. Some of the first Centrino notebooks did not have wireless connections built it. Of those that did have wireless connections, most used an Intel chip built for an obsolete slow form of wireless communication. By the time Intel released current wireless communication for Centrino notebook computers, the wireless specialists had already released faster and more reliable technology. To me the Centrino label currently means last year's slow technology.

Computer software vendors like to show pictures of people relaxing on a tropical beach. The vendors talk about you enjoying your holidays if you make your computer systems reliable by adding extra software. The truth is that when you add extra software, you always make a system less reliable. Before you add the magic extra software sold by the big software company, you need to plan improvements to existing software and all the supporting systems. The logistics of the plan are potentially huge which means the faster you start the more chance you have of creating time saving synergy with other activities. The extra software will then fit your plan instead of the revenue targets of the sales people from the big software vendor.

Technology succession cover more than just a few computers or a piece of software. The plans reach out to the major milestones in your organisation strategy plan. A well prepared technology succession plan synchronises with all your other plans.

Save time with a technology succession plan. Spend less time working on change and more time on increasing sales, or decreasing costs, or at home with your children.