As the National Defence Strategy clearly states, People are Defence’s most important asset. The Chief of Army’s 2024 start of year message stressed that ‘soldiers…are at the heart of our Army’s success’. Promotion contributes to the growth and retention of our people. Therefore, it is important to educate our members on one of the mechanisms that support promotion – the Career Management Board.

In March this year, I was fortunate to be part of one of the Career Management Boards (CMB) that support the promotion process. This article provides feedback on my observations from taking part in the board – to two main audiences. The first audience is assessing and senior assessing officers; I want to help you write useful Performance Appraisal Reports (PARs) to the board members. The second audience is individuals who are preparing for CMB; as well as exemplary service, you can improve your prospects by presenting your qualifications, experience, and potential to CMB members in a helpful manner.

This article will start with how a voting member prepares for a CMB to highlight the context in which a voting member reads your reports. It will then highlight some of the key ‘data’ that a member of a CMB is looking for in a report; it is about clearly articulating potential. Finally, it will provide feedback to members on their biography and board submission. I will start with how a member of the board prepares for a CMB.

Preparing for being a Member on a CMB

I received an expression of interest to attend a CMB in late 2023. It is something I have always wanted to do and I responded immediately. CMA selected me to be a voting member in late January. I then had 37 days to read 84 reports, with each report containing on average 35 pages. As with writing PARs, Army does not set aside time to read and digest these reports. As time is short, the Career Management Agency (CMA) provides a framework to assist CMB members to digest this data. This is merit, based on values, performance, qualifications, experience, and potential.

The result of this work is to place individuals into merit groups. The CMA provides guidance on how many members we can place in each group. It is a first cut on merit order that the CMB Chair can compare alongside each individual presenting to board. The board uses these groupings to rank candidates in order of merit for subsequent delegate decision making. For each member, the CMB member also writes a short statement that contains the following components:

  1. Relationship declaration. The relationship declaration helps the Board Chair determine if there is a bias (positive or negative) in relation to the assessment.
  2. Potential. The member has either a 'high potential for promotion', 'be competitive for promotion', 'have potential for promotion', or 'be working effectively at rank'.
  3. Attributes that make this officer stand out from their peers.
  4. Values, Experiences, or Qualifications.
  5. Development or improvement opportunities.

Writing an effective PAR for a member of a CMB.

There are a number of audiences and purposes for a PAR. A PAR provides feedback to a member and also allows merit-based decisions at the CMA. These comments focus on the CMB members, who are looking for values, performance, qualifications, experience, and potential:

  • Values. The Defence Ethos box in Part 3B of the PARs is a key area. It is an assumption that a member’s values align with Defence’s values. For assessing officers, it is vital to highlight if this is not the case or if this individual leads in extolling Defence’s values.
  • Performance. The PAR does a good job of providing a holistic description of a member’s performance. The ratings associated with each attribute are not as important as the words that justified the rating. Examples of above rank performance help. CMB Members read the whole report, but move through the majority of a PAR quickly.
  • Potential. I define potential as the ability of an individual to undertake appointments that are more demanding. The elements of potential I look for are intelligence, conscientiousness, inter-personal skills, self-reflection, and mental agility. A member’s potential is the key information that a CMB is trying to discern from the 35 pages in front of them. The information comes from the PAR. For assessing officers this is the key information a board member is looking for. The three parts of the report that I looked for this information were:
    • Part 3B titled: I have identified the following strengths.
    • Part 3B titled: Briefly highlight the aspects of performance that differentiates this officer from their peers.
    • Part 3B titled: I have identified the following opportunities for development / improvement.
    • Senior Assessing officer's comments.

Now that we have discussed how a CMB member prepares for the board and how assessing officers can help when they write their reports, it is time to discuss how a member can best prepare for the board.

Writing an effective Biography and Submission for a CMB.

From earlier, the basis for merit is a combination of your values, performance, qualifications, experience, and potential. A CMB member can draw valuable information on qualifications, experience and potential from the documents the member submits. They are the first two documents a CMB member generally reads. You know what they say about a first impression! It is important that you get these documents right. There is some valuable information on Pages - Career Management Boards (CMB) website to help you. The comments below provide some additional context.

Experience is an attribute drawn from your PAR and your profile. In addition, your submission and your biography are useful documents for drawing the board members to a particular PAR if you were in a role with a certain job description, but you found yourself employed elsewhere. This could include attachment to a Task Force or an operational deployment. This is also the place to highlight any experience gained from breaks in service or extra-curricular activities.

Qualifications come from your career management profile, which is 4-7 pages long. This is where a member can make the CMB member’s role easier. A well-written one-page biography that contains all the member’s relevant qualifications is extremely helpful. If you write that you have a degree in military history, make sure it is on PMKeyS. This will ensure it appears on your profile. I personally believe that tertiary education helps. When you are looking at excellence, it can be a discriminator. Generally, it also helps develop communication skills and strategic perspective.

CMB members can glean some sense of your potential from your submission. These can include statements that highlight what challenges you want to tackle in the ADF or that you are interested in a full career. I see the ability to conduct self-reflection as an indicator of potential, serious expression of your past experiences and actions are relevant. At the same time, I would advise members to express themselves with humility. Getting a trusted friend or mentor to help you prepare a submission and a biography is vital.

Finally, there are good arguments for and against photos in CMB. The US Army do not have them and the Royal Australian Air Force do not use them. The Australian Army do. There is the Army Career Portrait Photography Guide to help you prepare a photo that helps with that important first impression.

Summary

CMB members do not have much time. Assessing Officers can help by clearly indicating a member’s values, experience, performance, and potential. Members also have a role. Use your submission to demonstrate your qualification, additional experience and your potential. Good luck.