Determining how to align personal development with the projects being done is a key point in this I think. Having developers analyze themselves to find weaknesses along with giving feedback on others may be a way to find what may be improved and then finding a way to measure it. For example, I may find that I rarely document completed items and so on my objectives for the year I can state that I want to improve this and that the amount of documentation I produce can be a measure of that. It may work or it may backfire depending on how I follow it really. On the one hand there may be valid concerns for this being how I improve my work and do what may be viewed as the proper way while a passive aggressive or childish view would be to produce a mountain of documentation if it isn't that good in terms of quality as that can be improved next year as this can be another point to consider: What is supposed to be the motivation to improve as much as possible all in a year compared to spacing things out?
Defining an effective developer is another element to this. Is it the person that fixes bugs best? Does new work quickest? Does new work complete with tests and documentation even though it isn't done quick? What are you calling effective since the "it depends" standard response should be clarified here.
