How to train your replacement?
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The decision about who is going to succeed you in running the company is one of the most important you will make. Regardless of who you choose you can't just expect them to walk in and take over. You are going to have to take some time to train that person. There are various ways that this training can be done but for the most part they are all variations on the same approach.
The most important thing that you can do to train your replacement is to make sure that everything that he needs to know is written down. A lot of what you need to know in order to run the business is probably in your head, this is especially true if you were the founder. If you forget to tell your successor something important or if he forgets what you told him the company could be in real trouble. Make sure that all of the important information that the next person running the company is going to need is well documented and easily accessible so he will be able to use it if he needs it.
In most cases you will find that best thing to do in order to train your replacement is to allow them to watch what you do. This could take the form of job shadowing in which the person follows you around for a few days to see what you do. This can be very useful and it should be a part of the training. More useful however will be to allow your successor to be a part of the things that you are working on. For example if you are doing an important project make sure that your replacement is there to help work on it.
Eventually you are going to want to start to actually have your replacement do some of the work that you have to do. If you have a project to do delegate the work to your replacement. This will allow him to gain experience in doing the work and allow you the opportunity to assess how well he does it. As time goes by you are going to want to give him more and more responsibility until you eventually reach the point where you are comfortable with the belief that he could do your entire job.
In most cases you will find that as part of your training plan for your replacement that you will need to send him to work in various different departments of the company. If you are promoting somebody from within he may know what his own department does but in order to actually run the company he will need to know what everybody else does as well. Therefore it is a good idea to have your replacement spend some time cross training with the various departments of your company.