AbilityMap for Succession Planning
The best succession plans are built on capability dataAbilityMap identifies who is most likely to succeed in critical roles across your business. Use it to guide planning and provide evidence that your nominated successors have the natural capability to step up, perform and stay.
The problem with most succession plans
The result? Promoted leaders who struggle, successors who leave within 12 months, and critical roles left exposed at the worst possible time.
Succession planning needs an objective layer. One that measures what a person is genuinely capable of, not just what they’ve demonstrated in their current role. That’s the gap AbilityMap fills.
How AbilityMap strengthens your succession plan
Define what great looks like in your critical roles
Identify high-potential talent with evidence, not opinion
Invite your people to complete an AbilityMap assessment. In under an hour, you’ll have objective data on how each individual scores across meaningful capabilities like working with teams, business acumen, problem solving, and influencing and persuading. The reports and dashboards surface the people who score highest against the capability profile you’ve defined for each role. No more relying on who presents well in meetings or who has the loudest advocate at the leadership table.
Build development plans grounded in data
Monitor readiness as your organisation evolves
Succession planning isn’t a once-a-year exercise. As roles change, people grow, and the business shifts direction, your succession pipeline needs to keep pace. AbilityMap lets you reassess and recalibrate as often as needed, so your succession data is always current, not a relic from last year’s planning cycle.
The successors you’re missing
Your best candidate for a critical role might not be the obvious one. They might be in a completely different function, placed in a role that doesn’t reflect what they’re actually capable of. Performance data can’t surface these people. Capability data can.
AbilityMap measures the cognitive and behavioural traits that predict success in a future role, not past performance in a current one. It shows you who has the natural capacity to step up, even if they’ve never had the chance to prove it.
What you can do with AbilityMap
The objective data provided by AbilityMap can inform your succession planning process in a number of ways.Compare candidates objectively using capability data rather than subjective nominations
Spot hidden talent that traditional performance reviews and manager observations miss
Build targeted development plans based on specific capability gaps for each successor
Make defensible succession decisions backed by objective assessment data
Succession planning beyond the 9-box grid
Most succession plans fail because they rely on opinion, not evidence. Here's how to build one grounded in capability data.
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Ready to build a succession plan backed by data?
Sign up for a free to explore the platform (no credit card needed). Or contact us to book a time to learn more about how AbilityMap’s capability-based approach changes succession planning from an annual guessing game into an evidence-based strategy.
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