Succession and delegation
On this page 9 topics
Overview
Topics
- Creating ownership and reducing key-person dependencies
Learn first
2.5 h of practice (estimate)
Learning outcomes
- Identify where the organization depends on them (or any single person) and the risk this creates.
- Delegate ownership, not just tasks, with clear decision rights.
- Grow successors for their own responsibilities.
- Document knowledge so it survives their absence.
Lessons
Lab and exercises
Lab
SRA-020-LAB1 · Make yourself replaceable
Outcomes: 1–4 · Time: ~1.5 h
- Build a key-person risk map for Commerce 2030, including the learner's own role: decisions, knowledge, and approvals.
- Choose three critical areas and write a succession plan for each: successor path, scope ladder, and timeline.
- Write a decision-rights document for each area.
- Identify knowledge to record and where it will live; plan a test by someone else.
- Define how you will check, after a quarter, that each area runs without you.
Acceptance: each area has a named successor path and decision-rights document.
Exercises (case-based; six exercises)
| ID | Outcome | Task |
|---|---|---|
| SRA-020-EX01 | 1 | List your top five dependencies (decisions, knowledge, approvals) and what stops if you are absent for a month. |
| SRA-020-EX02 | 2 | Rewrite a task delegation ("update the retention settings") as ownership delegation of the event platform's retention policy. |
| SRA-020-EX03 | 2 | Write a decision-rights table for the event platform (four decision types). |
| SRA-020-EX04 | 3 | Design a successor ladder for the architecture review practice with timing and success criteria. |
| SRA-020-EX05 | 4 | Make a survival checklist for one area and describe how you will test it. |
| SRA-020-EX06 | 3 | A successor keeps asking you to decide. Diagnose and plan how to respond. |
Show solutions
- EX01 Examples: approving cross-domain schema changes, incident escalation for payments, historic knowledge on the billing model; each gets absence impact and time to trouble.
- EX02 Ownership: the platform team owns retention policy goals (cost, compliance), decides within limits, consults security for personal data, and reports quarterly; not just "change the setting".
- EX03 Schema change: owner decides, consumers consulted; new topic: owner decides; retention: owner decides, security consulted; breaking cross-domain change: architecture group decides.
- EX04 Observe, review with you, lead with you reviewing, lead alone, then train another reviewer; success is reviews continuing on time without you.
- EX05 Decision records, area guide, runbooks, contacts, access; test by having a colleague handle a mock request using only the documents.
- EX06 Likely unclear decision rights or low confidence; clarify limits, ask for their recommendation first, back their choices within limits, and review outcomes together.
Outcome 1 is also covered by the lab risk map and quiz.
Workplace evidence: an area you handed over that continued to thrive without you.
Quiz
Outcomes: O1 key-person risk · O2 delegating ownership and decision rights · O3 growing successors · O4 knowledge that survives.
A self-check for you: nothing is graded, saved or sent anywhere. Choose an answer, then check it. You can try again as often as you like.
Practical part
Six case exercises SRA-020-EX01 to EX06 plus the lab (plan review). Pass: quiz at least 8/10, and a plan review in which each of three critical areas has a named successor path and a decision-rights document, and the learner's own role is on the risk map.
Common mistakes
Delegating tasks while keeping all decisions; succession plans that exist only on paper.
Assessment
Plan review.
Workplace evidence
An area you handed over that continued to thrive without you.
Career relevance
Sustainable leadership (STF-020).