Promotion Criteria: Project Management
The following information may be useful to you in understanding the promotion criteria for advancement to Grades 14, and 15 at Goddard Space Flight Center. This is not meant to be a "checklist" of items but rather is intended to give you examples of the performance level expected from individuals at these grade-levels. It illustrates the types of accomplishments or activities that supervisors look for in a careful evaluation of sustained, individual achievement. Generally, one demonstrates readiness for advancement to higher levels by accumulation of evidence that one is capable of performing at the higher-grade level.
Formally, the minimum criteria that must be met for promotion to any grade in the Federal government is:
- The nominee must have at least one year of experience at the next lower grade level (e.g. one year of experience at the GS-13 level to be eligible for promotion to GS-14, etc.);
- The position to which one is promoted must be of sufficient importance to the organization that a personnel specialist can classify the employee’s new Position Description at the proposed higher grade. Below we give examples of expected, typical performance levels in the various categories that are used to assess job classification; and
-
The competition requirements of the NASA Competitive Placement Plan must
either be met or an exception to the competitive requirements established.
For more information, check the "NASA Desk Guide on the NASA Competitive Placement Plan for
Positions GS-15 and Below"
.
There are several OPM documents that provide general, useful information. For example:
Engineering Group-Criteria for Classification of Positions as Professional Engineers, GS-0800
Job Family Standard for Professional Physical Science Work, GS-1300
In general there is a gradual change in the scope of the employee’s influence, impact and degree of independence as one progresses through the upper grades. Whereas a GS-13 might propose and carry out an independent task, higher grade-level employees would lead tasks involving increasingly larger resource commitments (money, manpower, facilities, etc.) carried out with decreased levels of direct supervision and considerably more independence and responsibility for the direction and methods used to accomplish the goals of the project. Similarly, whereas a GS-13 might participate in one or more Center-wide committees, a GS-14 would also participate at the national level in, e.g., NASA-wide working groups or professional society activities. A typical GS-15 would chair or lead at these levels and also be involved in activities of international scope, such as in the organization of major international meetings, in the coordination of multinational research projects or by participation in multinational professional organizations.
Again, both the scope of the employee’s impact and influence, as well as their professional independence and personal responsibility for achieving mission goals, are expected to increase as they progress to the higher grades. Note that, although it is possible to be promoted with only minimal service activities to one’s credit, based almost solely on one’s professional accomplishments, this promotion is harder to justify and requires much more evidence of the significance of one’s professional accomplishments than would be required for an employee with a balance of service activities. In general, employees will be evaluated based on their Leadership, their Employee Accomplishments, their level of Responsibility, the Impact of their work, the extent of their Customer Satisfaction, their Relevant Experience and Education. Employee action teams at GSFC developed some criteria (in the form of non-inclusive examples) to document these factors. We have provided these examples (linked above), reflecting the unique character of Project Management work at GSFC.
For convenience, the same criteria listed above (Employee Accomplishments and Responsibilities, Leadership, etc.) are organized below by grade level:
