Passing the Baton: Succession planning for your project
summary
Argues succession planning as a skills pipeline, not just CEO backup, using concrete practices: inventory critical roles, list duties, refactor big roles into smaller ones, limit tenure, and capture a big brain‑dump plus TLDR. Cites 19.4M public GitHub repos as scale problem, warns about a bus factor of one, and recommends credentials in roll email addresses (admin@) instead of personal accounts. Gives working examples: Exercism pushes to have at least three maintainers per language track and Vox Pupuli co‑maintains 120+ Puppet modules, which raises bus factors and reduces burnout.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Passing the Baton
- 1:46Brief history of FOSS
- 5:47Leadership Skills Pipeline
- 7:33Continuity
- 7:50Avoid a power vacuum
- 9:29Talent development
- 12:12Summary of Benefits of Succession Planning
- 14:12Don't know where to start
- 16:22Identify critical roles
- 16:56Identify role duties & responsibilities
- 17:27Refactor large roles
- 18:08Consider limiting tenure for a role
- 19:12Knowledge transfer
- 19:35Procedures & processes
- 20:54Credentials
- 22:06Project history
- 24:32Ask for mentorship
- 28:02Slides
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