We will all have to deal with bad things happening that we couldn't plan for them. When these things happen, our organization or we have to continue to work with a somewhat level of success.
We have chaos engineering for distributed systems and micro-services that allow us to ensure that our system will perform if random components stop working as planned or completely fail. Many organizations spend time setting up disaster recovery mechanisms to help deal with an entire data center going down. Still, most have nothing in place if an employee is incapacitated.
Since starting my career, I have become obsessed with putting processes in place for when I cannot show up. This has allowed me to accept promotions or new opportunities without worrying about my team's fate.
They are some learning from disaster recovery plans that I use when planning for the bus factor, namely:
- Recovery Time Objective: How long will my team take to start operating well without me?
- Recovery Point Objective: How often do I keep the team informed of what is happening to continue where I stopped quickly?
- Inventory of information and initiatives: I need an easy-to-access source(s) of knowledge of everything happening.
- Identify Personnel Roles: The people that will be capital to the success of a sudden succession plan.
- Run continuous practice Tests to ensure your plan is effective: How often do you let other people take control to get used to having the authority?
There are other things I left aside until I find a way to practice them in my everyday life.
Recovery Time Objective
How long it takes for your team to recover will depend on your organization and critical role, but you should aim for a short time. I have decided that one week is good enough for my teams to adapt to the new reality and for everyone involved to take over all my areas of responsibility.
It is vital for the people involved to know their roles so they are not surprised and act naturally toward making the plan happen.
Recovery Point Objective
The people taking over from you need to know the state of your organization. They are certain things that are critical for them to know:
- The ongoing projects.
- The ongoing challenges.
- Some people related events, e.g., warning letters, future promotions, probations.
- Documentations.
- Upcoming meetings, milestones, and deadlines.
This information changes regularly, and you need to ensure that the people involved in your recovery plan have an updated notion of the state of your organization.
Here, I have decided that the oldest information my collaborators should have is two weeks old. So I try to update them every week when things change.
Inventory of information and initiatives
You need to hold, classify, and distribute information well and often ensure that people can continue functioning when you cannot answer questions. I usually distribute information as soon as I get it to the relevant parties, so there is always one more person than me aware of a given fact.
This point is one of the hardest because not everyone involved in your recovery plan is purview to the information you hold. You must pick the people carefully and include your manager in this plan for sensitive information.
Your manager is essential to this plan. I will explain how they are the key player in this plan and why you need to get them onboard fast and do it without sounding like you are suicidal.
(Suicide is a severe issue. My article isn't about it, but if you have self-harming thoughts, please contact your region's suicide hotline. Here is the U.A.E. Free hotline. Please take care of yourself. I love you dearly, fellow human.)
Identify Personnel Roles
Your recovery plan is about enabling the people that stay after you leave. Therefore people are the central part of your plan. I recommend that every manager out there finds the critical players in their team:
- A successor or second in command.
- A technical advisor, aka "the future principal engineer."
- Your manager.
Depending on the size of your organization, for example, if you lead multiple teams, you will need multiple people from each category.
I lead multiple teams at Talabat (July 2021) directly or through another manager who reports to me. So I had to pick a second in command in each squad, two technical advisors, and onboard my manager to this plan.
Second in command
This person will replace you forever or temporarily until a more seasoned manager is hired or reassigned. Therefore they need to be aware of what you are doing. They need to know the ongoing project, challenges, and upcoming meetings. You have to mentor them potentially more than the rest of the team because of the capital role in the plan.
Choosing a second in command doesn't need you to promise them a promotion. Your second in command can be someone without managerial aspiration who needs to run a team for a while until a replacement arrives.
I recommend picking the person you want to replace you should you get promoted.
The technical advisor
This person has to be good at what they do and understand what other engineers (potentially from different skill sets) are doing.
This person will load from the second in command when they take control by taking care of the technical issues. At the same time, the second in command is busy getting used to the managerial burden.
The second in command will probably participate in many meetings to reassure the stakeholders. It would be best to have someone to care for the code's quality and the services' health during that time.
You will use the tech advisor while you are still leading. Because even though you might be a seasoned manager with everything in control, you need help running your team. So consider you are asking for the tech advisor's support as training.
Your manager
Without your manager, this plan won't work. Your manager needs to "activate" the second in command and tech advisor when you can't be there anymore. They must trust that your second-in-command and tech advisor can do the job well enough and let them take control.
Now you don't have to tell your manager you are putting a succession plan in place (although it won't hurt, it might make them do the same). But it would be best if you told your manager that you trust your second-in-command to take over. Regularly give them practical examples of why they are suitable for the job.
Please don't lie, be honest about it because the people you selected have to be good enough that you want to brag about them to your manager.
If you have multiple teams under your control, you need a second in command per team, and your manager must know them.
Run continuous practice Tests to ensure your plan is effective.
The best practice test for your plan is going on holiday 🏖️🏖️🏖️. Yes, the holiday is a time when you can't work (DON'T WORK DURING HOLIDAY.), and this gives your time the possibility to practices not having you;
During your holiday, don't ask your team to slow down. Ensure your team understands that it is business as usual and that your second in command and tech advisor will take their respective responsibility.
Also, inform your manager to talk to your second0in-command and not to you if something goes wrong.
Another way of running this is to pick a week during the month when you run the one-on-ones and step back from daily operations. It might feel like you are wasting their time, but this is good training for everyone because this is a golden opportunity to upskill and potentially look for better roles.
It is also valuable because now you know if your team understands your philosophy. You can see if your team can work coherently with your short, mid, and long-term plan without you being in the room.
You will get answers to these questions while building a highly reliable organization.
Takeaways
You need to plant this correctly, but more importantly, you need to start practicing:
- Give away some responsibility to your team.
- Communicate often about what your priorities are.
- Make sure to have your manager on board.
- Mentor your second in command and tech adviser.
I believe that leaving an organization one day, knowing that they will be okay because you did a fantastic job training the succession, is fulfilling.
Also, you will become a much better manager doing this.
You can download a to-do list for your notion notebook here or this PDF to-do list.
Important notes:
- Suppose you feel stuck in your career and are unsure where to go. You can schedule a career coaching call with me; we will work together to ensure your career is a source of happiness, not stress.
- For those who live in Dubai or are planning to move to Dubai, you might be interested in the rental cost calculator I created https://www.rentalcost.ae.
- And finally, if you want, you can buy me a coffee.
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