Great article over at Smashing on Developer Training.

My favorite bit is about ranking your developers on specific skills. Making this public makes it effortless for project managers to know who to contact in particular situations.

I did the same thing at Masterworks, but only ranked 1-4, which for our purposes worked just fine. The granularity of 1-10 makes sense when you want to be a bit more specific about skills, but in most situations a smaller scale makes it easier to understand.

The other aspect of publicizing this list is the inherent, healthy competition it creates. Individuals need measuring sticks and this provides one. it also lets developers know which peer they can use for help on a particular project.

Finally, it creates a tripwire for assuring you are providing learning opportunities for developers. In my experience the best developers are self-taught, but you should be allowing the space to grow. By revisiting the rankings on a quarterly basis, in a conversation with developers, you can measure your training efforts.