# Make a Progression or Talent Decision

Status: draft · v0.1.0 · Performance and Development System
draft reference — not a fitted standard

Make an evidence-based decision about expanded scope, progression, readiness, succession consideration, lateral movement, or continued development against real work and explicit authority.

## Purpose
Match demonstrated capability and aspiration to an authorized organizational need without turning performance ratings, tenure, visibility, potential labels, or manager advocacy into automatic entitlement.

## Steps
1. Frame the decision and authority — Define exactly what is being decided and what remains outside this process.
2. Define the target work and evidence standard — Assess against actual future work rather than a title, person prototype, or vague potential.
3. Assemble permitted evidence and aspiration — Create a complete decision record without importing irrelevant history or private information.
4. Assess readiness and transition risk — Judge the evidence against target work while preserving uncertainty and development possibilities.
5. Calibrate candidates and options — Test consistency and organizational effects without reducing people to a grid.
6. Decide and authorize the talent outcome — Make one explicit decision while preserving downstream authorities.
7. Communicate, route, and review — Turn the decision into a clear next state without informal promises or silent shelving.

## Connections
- upstream: Review Performance and Contribution (/processes/review-performance-and-contribution) — trigger: A separate talent decision is authorized.
- upstream: Build and Operate a Development Plan (/processes/build-and-operate-development-plan) — trigger: A development disposition is relevant to an authorized talent decision.
- upstream: Define Role and Success Profile (/processes/define-role-success-profile) — trigger: Target work is defined or revised.
- downstream: Align Role Outcomes and Expectations (/processes/align-role-outcomes) — trigger: The role or assignment implementation becomes effective.
- downstream: Build and Operate a Development Plan (/processes/build-and-operate-development-plan) — trigger: The decision authorizes continued or target-specific development.

## Measures
- Talent decision operating fit: Structured review of transition, role outcomes, capability use, support, retention, and changed conditions; not causal attribution to the decision alone.
- Talent decision evidence completeness: Decisions satisfying required evidence and control fields divided by all completed decisions.
- Talent decision cycle time: Elapsed time from charter admission to acknowledged decision, separated by evidence, calibration, approval, and communication waits.
- Controlled talent-decision method use: Completed decisions conforming to the active method divided by all completed decisions.
- Talent decision exception pattern: Exceptions by type, decision path, target, owner, severity, cause, and disposition.
- Opportunity access, fairness, dignity, privacy, and promise guardrail: Qualified review of candidate pools, evidence, opportunity history, decisions, communications, responses, and outcomes; not a causal or legal conclusion.