It’s not exactly Succession, but it pays to have a plan when the IT lead goes to the great beyond.
Yes, it’s a morbid thought, but your boss might leave the office forever without warning, at any time; all we are is pixelated dust in the solar wind. And while mourning and processing the impact are parts of dealing with loss, there are, sadly, more mundane considerations when that person is part of your organization.
No. 1. A succession plan is a good start, StorMagic CPO Bruce Kornfeld told IT Brew.
“There’s succession planning; there’s hiring really good staff under these people so that if they were to leave or get hit by a bus, the department doesn’t get in complete turmoil,” Kornfeld said. “There are a lot of things that hopefully should have happened beforehand.”
As Workhuman CFO Mark Schwartz previously told CFO Brew, it’s key to have succession in place in case of employee loss. Not only does this assist with a smooth transition, it can help bolster morale.
“I don’t think you can be successful if you’re not measuring yourself in part on your ability to create the next set of leaders and do that succession planning,” Schwartz said.
Values. But first, you need to understand that your staff will need time to handle their emotions and grieve. The human element on any team is important, and IT is no different; there may need to be some sort of “pause,” Kornfeld said, to “make sure that that person and that person’s family are acknowledged, and it’s not just looked past.”
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At the same time, you can’t leave things to chance—the likelihood of an attacker targeting an IT team grieving the loss of a leader is low, but threat actors never rest. Even a routine attack could lead to disaster without a proper plan in place to keep things buttoned up. But Kornfeld noted that it’s unlikely that a day or two of downtime for mourning will have a deleterious effect on organizational security.
“Hopefully the systems that they have in place, the infrastructure that’s there to protect data, to protect information and keep applications running, somebody passing away doesn’t change that instantly,” Kornfeld said. “You would think, 99% of the time, a couple days isn’t going to hurt you.”
Clear it up. Along with succession planning, IT team leads should ensure that systems remain running and conduct regular audits and analysis. Assessing infrastructure makes sure it runs reliably going forward no matter who’s in charge, and looking at the people in the process allows for improvemen.
When planning ahead for a sudden succession, Kornfeld suggested focusing on “the right way with dealing with the tragedy and supporting people emotionally. Once you get through all that, the advice to the IT teams out there is to always be thinking about the way that you’re building your infrastructure to support the business.”