We received a brief from the ASP team recently, where they said 'we are going to give you more control over your career..you don't have to be mucked around anymore'.
Just two days later DP rang one of my colleagues and told him there was a short notice, 'must be filled' posting on the cards for the new year. It is now Dec 13...thanks for all the heads up.
This stuff is always going to happen, regardless of good intentions. It has already happened to me. It is possible to keep some people very happy, but you're going to have to screw someone else over to do it.
The longer you stay in, the more chance you have of being:
"That one person who we need to fill this posting.."
If you are smart you need to consider other career options well before you reach end of ROSO, because unless you want to be CAF, you will eventually be used as a gopher doing a staff job in which you have no expertise, in an undesirable location where you live in a sh...t married quarter and your wife and kids are miserable, because they have no friends and they're going to have to repeat the same miserable process of moving in two year's time....