JavaBlackBelt Releases Results of Java Skills Management Survey -- Developers Say 25% Productivity Increase Comes with Commitment to Skills Management
JavaBlackBelt, a leader in Java skills management and now powered by over 50,000 developers in its global community, today announced the results of its first membership survey on Java skills management and feedback on the JavaBlackBelt service.
The top findings were: over 75% of developers said Java skills assessment is important to their project success, developers estimated that their Java teams would be 25% more productive if management committed to skills management, the JavaBlackBelt service received a 90% membership satisfaction rating, and a strong majority of respondents agreed that JavaBlackBelt was their best tool for skills assessment.
Brussels, Belgium (PRWEB) February 17, 2009 -- JavaBlackBelt, a leader in Java skills management and now powered by over 50,000 developers in its global community, today announced the results of its first membership survey on Java skills management and feedback on the JavaBlackBelt service.
The top findings were: over 75% of developers said Java skills assessment is important to their project success, developers estimated that their Java teams would be 25% more productive if management committed to skills management, the JavaBlackBelt service received a 90% membership satisfaction rating, and a strong majority of respondents agreed that JavaBlackBelt was their best tool for skills assessment with the advantages of online availability and more comprehensive, up-to-date questions.
John Rizzo, founder of JavaBlackBelt, comments, "First, I'm very thankful to the participants for taking the time and care to offer this feedback. Next, any attention that comes to JavaBlackBelt from these numbers should be shared with our membership - they are the heart of our model. Lastly, I do see the 25% productivity gain from improved skills management as a compelling, realizable, and shared opportunity for the industry, and I will continue to dedicate myself and our company to help achieve it."
The JavaBlackBelt skills management service is crowd-sourced and moderated. From its web 2.0-based site, developers take online assessments and managers access performance reports and learning path tools. The survey was emailed to a sampling of JavaBlackBelt members in January, 2009 and included over 400 verified respondents, who each completed the entire survey.
The full list of responses:
| | - Over 75% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that Java skills assessment is important to the success of their projects.
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| | - As to why skills assessment was important, the top answer was productivity - labeled an important benefit by 85% of respondents, followed by targeted training with 80% of respondents, hiring the right talent with 70%, career development and proper staffing tied with 65%, and more clarity in performance reviews with 60%.
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| | - On the quantitative impact on productivity, respondents said that the productivity of their team would increase by an average of 25% if their management committed to skills management.
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| | - Regarding JavaBlackBelt, about 90% agreed or strongly agreed that JavaBlackBelt's service is a useful skills assessment tool and that they are satisfied with the service.
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| | - Nearly 60% or more agreed or strongly agreed that the JavaBlackBelt service was the best Java skills assessment tool available to them (while only 7% disagreed), that their organization would be more productive if more of their developers used JavaBlackBelt, and that their management should know more about JavaBlackBelt.
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| | - The advantages of JavaBlackBelt over alternatives for skills assessments were led by online availability - selected by over 90% of respondents; lower-cost, more up-to-date questions, more comprehensive questions, and more a engaging service tied with about 80% or more each; and higher-quality questions and more frequent assessments each had 65%.
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| | - Conversely, the advantages of alternative methods of skills assessments over JavaBlackBelt was led by greater industry recognition at 80% and better management acceptance at 60%. Less than 30% felt that alternatives had the advantage of higher quality or more comprehensive questions.
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The full questions and results of the survey are available at www.globalforcedirect.com/javablackbelt-member-survey and www.javablackbelt.com/DocumentView.wwa?page=Survey3. Interested managers can sign-up for a Discovery Session with JavaBlackBelt experts on how to best implement Java skills management in their organization. Visitors can also suggest topics and questions for the next JavaBlackBelt survey, which will seek views on which Java skills are the most valuable in today's job market.
More on JavaBlackBelt
JavaBlackBelt is a global leader in Java learning services. Its web 2.0-based Java skills management site is powered by over 50,000 developers and offers developers anytime, online assessments across seven levels and 19 state-of-the-art categories. Using the site's skills reports and learning paths, managers can realize "continuous skills management" and improve decision-making at all critical points in their development process, including at hiring, staffing, training, appraisals, and organizational planning. Major organizations that have incorporated JavaBlackBelt into their enterprise skills management include USG innotiv ICT, Smals, Axa, Capgemini, KLM, and XPlore Group.
The subscription price for the JavaBlackBelt Enterprise Edition - which includes assessments, reporting, learning path management, and enterprise content -- is $250.00 (US) per developer. Assessments for individual developers are available at no charge simply by joining and contributing to the JavaBlackBelt Community Edition.
Global Force DIRECT is the North American and Indian distributor of JavaBlackBelt services.
More on Skills Categories
JavaBlackBelt skills management spans skill categories in Java APIs such as JMS, JDBC, Java2D, JSF, Swing, RegEx, Servlet, JSP, Core J2SE, JPA and EJB; in frameworks such as Tapestry, Spring, Struts, JDom, JGoodies, Log4J, and Hibernate; in products such as Tomcat, JUnit, Ant, WebSphere, Maven, Eclipse, PMD, and CVS; and in related categories such as OO, Design Patterns, XML, HTML, UML, and SQL. As the JavaBlackBelt content is crowd-sourced/moderated, categories expand to keep pace with advancements in Java technologies.
More on Discovery Sessions
Discovery Sessions are remote consultations for Java development and training managers on Java skills management applied to their organization. The goal of Discovery Sessions is to help organizations realize the 25% productivity increase that JavaBlackBelt members associate with management commitment to Java skills management. JavaBlackBelt Java skills experts review and discuss a span of related topics, including: organizational make-up, developer missions and required technologies, existing training courses and validation, assessment/certification priorities, blended learning options, skills champions, benchmarking, management reporting, budgeting, and ROI.
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