Lesson 5.34: Key-person risk and succession
The skills matrix showed single experts; the on-call data showed one person carrying the nights. The final team question is the bluntest: if any one person were unavailable tomorrow, which critical systems could nobody run or recover? Key-person risk sits where knowledge, access and documentation all depend on one human. In the lab you find systems with a single administrator, the person who is sole admin of several, missing or stale runbooks and missing or untested break-glass accounts, and write a succession plan that removes each dependency.
18 min
You will learn to
- Find systems with a single administrator
- Find the people who concentrate access
- Check runbooks exist and are tested
- Check break-glass access exists and is tested
- Write a succession plan
Key terms
- Key-person risk
- The risk that losing one person stops a critical capability.
- Runbook
- Step-by-step instructions to operate or recover a system.
- Break-glass account
- A sealed emergency credential used only when normal access fails, with every use logged and alerted.
- Dual control
- Requiring two people for a sensitive operation.
- Succession plan
- A plan so that each critical role or capability has a trained backup.
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