Where I've seen them they tell you exactly what you should have been doing for the previous 5 years. People who guessed correctly what the career matrix would be 5 years ago and did that get promoted when they release it. However they change those all the time (or because budget is short kill it for a few years and then create a new one). Still there is enough in common that you can often guess right enough to get promoted.

The important part is when you do something that saves the day make sure people know. Never save the day quietly, if you write some defensive code so you don't get an emergency call at 2am you won't get promoted for saving the day at 2am! You have to make sure everyone knows you wrote that code. I've seen many people over my career who did those quiet works - they got a small senior position at best, then when they left the company quickly discovered how important those things were and suddenly they have a small department of very senior people doing that thing one person was quietly doing before. (this isn't just code - I know of a company that laid of their maintenance person because nothing ever went wrong so they must not need them - then needed 3 people to replace him in 6 months)