Glossary and Where to Start

The map — a list of critical activities against who can do them, who else could, and where the knowledge lives if nobody can. Thirty lines, updated twice a year.

The principles in “Glossary and Where to Start” become easier to maintain when ownership and time spent are visible. Teams evaluating this supporting guide can use it to coordinate recurring work, identify tasks concentrated on one person and plan realistic backup capacity, while treating the data as a prompt for knowledge transfer rather than as a substitute for speaking with the people who do the work.

For an independent benchmark, compare the local approach with Ready.gov business preparedness guidance; the useful test is whether ownership, access and recovery remain proportionate and explainable when the usual expert is absent.

Accepted dependency — one you have decided not to remove, with a stated reason and a known fallback. Different from an ignored one, which looks identical and behaves differently.

The day-one exercise — working through what happens on the first day without a specific person. Twenty minutes, more useful than a continuity plan.

Decision record — five lines on what was decided, what the alternatives were, why, and what would change it.

Deputy — somebody who has actually done the task, has tested access, is known outside the organisation, and knows what they can decide.

Rehearsal — a planned absence used deliberately: no contact, coverers record what they could not answer, review afterwards.

The residue — what remains after everything writable is written and everything transferable is transferred. Normal; its size is what matters.

The three numbers — single-person activities, uninterrupted days off taken, single-person access.

Terms from elsewhere that do not apply here

"Succession plan" in the corporate sense — a document, a pipeline, a nine-box grid. At fifteen people there is no pipeline and the document does not get read.

"Bench strength" — there is no bench. The person who would cover is already at full capacity.

"Knowledge management" — usually means a system. What works at this scale is a habit and a shared folder.

Where to start

You have never looked at this: what key-person dependence actually looks like, then the map.

Somebody is about to go on holiday: planned absence as a test.

Somebody has resigned: notice periods, then handover conversations.

Somebody is unexpectedly absent: what to do in the first week.

You are the dependency: the owner who cannot take a holiday.

You want the cheapest wins: access, passwords and accounts, then supplier knowledge.

If you read only three

Why it feels like reliability, because it explains why nothing gets done.

Access, passwords and accounts, because it is an afternoon and it is most of the practical risk.

And planned absence as a test, because the rehearsals are happening anyway and wasting them is the largest free loss available.

A closing note

Nothing here is legal advice. Employment obligations, company law consequences of incapacity, and regulatory requirements differ substantially by jurisdiction. Take advice on anything with a legal dimension.

No product names, because the useful distinctions are between habits rather than between tools.

And no corporate frameworks, because they were built for organisations with a bench and they consume the effort that should go into the work.

What the collection argues

Succession is not a document but a habit of working so that knowledge does not settle in one head.

Dependence accumulates invisibly and feels like reliability, which is why it is rarely addressed while there is time.

Most of the practical benefit comes from the cheap items — access, contacts, a page per activity — and from using the absences that already happen as rehearsals.

And the rest should be a decision rather than a discovery.

The point

Succession at this scale is a habit rather than a document, and the corporate apparatus consumes the effort that should go into the work..