DDBA 8581 Week 5 Capability Bench Review Example

Where the Critical Capabilities Already Live: A Bench Review Mapping the Top Three Exposed Roles' Capabilities Across the Company and Arguing That a Record of Having Covered the Work Is Stronger Evidence of Readiness Than a Performance Rating

Student Name

Walden University

DDBA 8581: Succession Planning: A Survival Tool of the Fittest

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Where the Critical Capabilities Already Live: A Bench Review Mapping the Top Three Exposed Roles' Capabilities Across the Company and Arguing That a Record of Having Covered the Work Is Stronger Evidence of Readiness Than a Performance Rating

The Question

Succession meetings at the composite chemicals manufacturer have usually asked managers to nominate high performers who could step up. This review asks where each capability the three most exposed roles depend on already exists, in any job or person, and what evidence shows it. Rothwell (2010) described succession planning as identifying and developing people to fill key positions; this review begins one step earlier, by finding where the positions' critical capabilities already exist.

The Evidence Standard

Evidence is ranked in four levels, applied to every cell. Strongest is demonstrated coverage: the person has performed the capability in the role, for instance during a leave or vacancy. Next is observed partial performance: the person performs part of the capability in their own job. Third is a supervisor's specific account of a relevant task performed well. Weakest is a general performance rating or nomination.

The Coverage Map

[after]

Evidence came from leave records, interviews with supervisors and the people named, and system logs showing who made scheduling changes.

Table 1

Coverage of Critical Capabilities in the Three Most Exposed Roles

What the Map Shows

Two capabilities exist nowhere but in the incumbent: turnaround inventory builds and, apart from a part-time retiree, the larger plant's control logic. Distributor relationships exist only partly, through an inside sales lead who knows three of nine distributors. Reactor 2 sequencing is the best covered: the junior scheduler covered it for a week during the incumbent's 2024 vacation, the only demonstrated coverage among current employees.

Why Not Ratings

The company's prior succession list named the instrument technician as ready to succeed the controls engineer, citing four years of top ratings. The map shows the technician has never worked with the control logic. Scullen et al. (2000) analyzed performance ratings from multiple raters and found that idiosyncratic rater effects, the particular tendencies of each rater, accounted for more of the variance in ratings than the performance of the person being rated. Silzer and Church (2009) cautioned that high performance in a current role is not the same as potential for a different one, and that organizations often confuse the two. A top rating says the technician does the current job well in the supervisor's eyes; it says little about readiness to maintain control logic.

This does not mean managerial judgment is worthless. A supervisor's specific account of a task performed well, the third evidence level, can be informative. The argument is against general ratings and nominations as evidence for a specific capability.

Implications

Turnaround builds need immediate attention, since no one else has done them. The control logic gap needs a successor developed alongside the incumbent and the retiree. The sales relationships need a second contact introduced to the six distributors the inside sales lead does not know.

Testing Readiness Before It Is Needed

Because demonstrated coverage is the strongest evidence and the rarest, the company should create it deliberately. Planned leaves and vacations are opportunities: when the scheduler takes two weeks off next summer, the junior scheduler should cover Reactor 2 with the incumbent reachable by phone, and the result should be recorded. The same applies to the controls engineer's leave. Each planned absence turns a cell on the map from observed partial to demonstrated, or reveals that it should not be.

A Caution on the Retiree

The part-time retiree is coverage, not succession: available two days a month, the retiree can advise and review but cannot run the plant's control system day to day.

Limits

Demonstrated coverage is rare, so most cells rest on weaker evidence. Leave records capture formal coverage but not informal help.

References

Rothwell, W. J. (2010). Effective succession planning: Ensuring leadership continuity and building talent from within (4th ed.). AMACOM.

Scullen, S. E., Mount, M. K., & Goff, M. (2000). Understanding the latent structure of job performance ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(6), 956-970. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.85.6.956

Silzer, R., & Church, A. H. (2009). The pearls and perils of identifying potential. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2(4), 377-412. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2009.01163.x