In Prahalad and Hamel's excellent book Competing for the Future , they suggest that businesses identify their core competencies and build strategies based on these fundamental building blocks. This provides a foundation for the organization and employees to build a career development process that matches what the organization needs. The institution needs to identify the types of management and technical skills it needs in various positions. Human Resources should work with line managers to identify likely candidates so that they can begin preparing them for positions once they become vacant. Often, succession planning is left to chance.
Baseball provides a good analogy for effective succession planning.
With its farm systems, players move up from A to AA to AAA as their skills increase and as openings occur. Career assessment and development activities that allow people to get ready for positions. One company linked individual career planning to corporate objectives so that people could see how their plans fit into overall direction. It allowed individuals who wished to remain within the company to make career development and placement decisions that increased their chances of succeeding. A group of employees create a new business or line of service that the company can market.