Redgate released the results of their State of Database Landscape recently, and I was part of a webinar where Beca Parker, Ryan Booz, and I discussed the results. As we were talking, one of the things that struck me was the high number of people who had picked skills as being a challenge for their organization. In a single environment, skillset requirements and training were the number one challenge, and it was listed as the number one obstacle to implementing a DevOps approach.

While this industry is full of self-taught individuals who have spent time learning new technologies and tools, it's somewhat amazing that training continues to be an issue. Many organizations limit their training budgets and time allocated to employees while continuing to expand the number of technologies and platforms they use. This is one reason why I think changing database platforms to avoid licensing costs is unlikely to save you money anytime soon. Retraining staff and developing competence takes time. Perhaps this is also one reason why many companies look to the cloud, thinking that they can reduce the amount of upskilling needed by their staff if the cloud vendor manages the systems.

That might be true, but there is a lot of knowledge is still needed about how the underlying technologies work, especially if employees are to efficiently write code or make configuration changes in the system. The cloud can be more cost-effective, but it can easily be less cost-effective. Knowledgeable employees can make a difference.

I do see plenty of organizations subscribe to online learning, but often I find these courses good for basics, but not necessarily helpful for specific situations and just-in-time knowledge requirements for projects. There more custom training, or at least, group support, is needed to ensure that your staff is learning efficiently. Far too many people can't handle open-ended training from an online platform and complete more than one course.

Training isn't enough, as there also needs to be some practical application of new skills in your environment. Practicing katas as a group, coaching each other, and applying skills to actual projects while measuring results is important. It takes some commitment from both employees and organizations to get better. Far too often, I also see staff unmotivated to learn and grow, for a variety of reasons, but that's a different problem that we have to work to solve together.

The world of technology in business is growing increasingly complex. We find more and more organizations adding technologies, especially new database platforms, and we lack skilled people to work with them. That's a constant challenge, but one that creates opportunities for you if you find ways to improve yourself.