Grooming the next generation

Smart IT leaders take succession planning seriously.

By Thomas Hoffman

May 23, 2005 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Until recently, many CIOs hadn't given much thought to succession planning, thanks largely to a weak economy and low staff turnover. "People were lulled into a sense of complacency over the last five years, as there hadn't been much job movement," says Bill Homa, CIO at Hannaford Brothers Co., a Scarborough, Maine-based grocer.
But that's starting to change. The economy is gaining strength, and turnover is edging up. More important, many CIOs are recognizing that they need to actively develop the next generation of IT managers and technical leaders as thousands of experienced baby boomer IT professionals near retirement age and U.S. colleges and universities churn out fewer computer science graduates.
"Ten years from now, we're going to be facing a big gap" in supply and demand for IT management and technical skills, says Maria Schafer, an analyst at Gartner Inc.
Senior management at most U.S. companies has done a poor job of succession planning -- not only within the IT ranks but throughout most corporate departments such as finance, customer service and human resources, says Schafer. "We just don't think in long-term horizons in the U.S. as they do in Japan and Germany," she adds.
Still, some forward-thinking companies, like General Electric Co., have had succession management programs for years. "We place succession planning as an integral part of our leadership development process," says Chris Perretta, vice president and CIO at GE Commercial Finance in Stamford, Conn.
Under a formal review process that's done for all GE employees each spring, managers conduct an exercise known internally as "Succession C," in which a rigorous, written succession plan is put together for each worker, says Perretta.

Image Credit: Marcos Chin

GE Commercial Finance has a succession plan for each of its 1,200 IT workers, he adds. At the CIO level, Perretta and other executives are constantly assessing IT directors and other potential candidates for attributes such as curiosity, business focus and high energy levels. To help develop its next set of IT and other corporate leaders, GE developed a short-term international rotation program more than 10 years ago to move workers among various geographic locations in order to give them "tangible international experience," says Hank Zupnick, CIO at GE Commercial Finance Real Estate, a division of GE Commercial Finance, also in Stamford.
Detroit-based DTE Energy Co. launched a corporate succession-planning effort three years ago. The program was started following an executive repositioning in the wake of DTE's merger with MCN Energy Group Inc. and an early-retirement program that was more popular than

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