Engineering talent plan canvas
The 12 to 24 month talent plan canvas is a strategic planning page for your engineering and technical workforce. It is designed for a 60-minute session with your engineering or technical leadership team and HR. Work through the six sections in order to build your plan on a page.
Free download: Engineering talent plan canvas (PowerPoint).
1. Business context (5 minutes)
- Key business goals: your top three strategic priorities for the next 12 to 24 months.
- Major projects or changes: significant projects, expansions or changes that are planned.
- Key constraints: budget limits, location restrictions and technology shifts.
2. Engineering and technical team today (10 minutes)
- Break down current headcount by function: design, projects, technical, maintenance, field and other.
- Identify strengths, bottlenecks, dependencies and capability gaps.
3. 12 to 24 month demand forecast (15 minutes)
- Forecast new roles needed in each quarter.
- Plan for backfills, including retirements and risk of leavers, and for skills shifts from new technology.
4. Strategic priorities (10 minutes)
- Agree your top three talent priorities, for example building a controls pipeline or reducing time to hire.
- For each priority, define measurable success criteria and a timeframe.
5. Make, buy or build (10 minutes)
- Internal develop: who and which roles you can grow from within.
- External hire: the roles that need recruitment focus.
- Automate or outsource: where roles may shrink or change.
6. Support needed from your recruitment partner (10 minutes)
- Tick what you need: retainers or talent pipelines, salary and market insight, campaigns or branded projects, and early-career programmes.
- Discuss these with your recruitment partner and agree next steps.
Keeping the plan current
Record the completion date and a review date on your plan, and review it when the business plan changes. The Critical Role and Succession Heatmap is a useful input to section 2, and the engineering recruitment health check shows where your current approach needs work first.
Talk it through
Book a free 30-minute discovery call if you would like help running the session. You can also email info@yprecruit.co.uk or call 0113 418 0806.
