6 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Investing in a New Development Tool
A guide for business leaders whose dev teams constantly claim they can’t finish a project without that shiny new tool.
Choosing software development tools is all about finding the balance between shiny newness and this-actually-helps-us-ship-software-ness. Pick something with too much of the former and not enough of the latter, and you’ll grind productivity to a halt. Go the other way—with something that’s super effective but not remotely popular — and you’ll end up with a SaaS albatross. Want to find the sweet spot without spending gobs of time (and money) you could be devoting to your business? Ask yourself these six questions the next time an engineer asks for a new toy.
1. Are you optimizing for the sake of optimizing?
Sure Shiny New Tool may have a few more features (and better marketing) than Your Old Standby, but is Your Old Standby still doing its job? If it ain’t broke …
2. Can you fix the tool you have?
And would it be cheaper to do that than buy something new? (Don’t forget to factor in the cost of migrating data, the time necessary to train everyone on the new tool, and any other hiccups that will inevitably pop up along the way.) Which leads us to …
3. How will this impact business?
Who is going to use this tool? What will it replace? How will implementing it change the way your development team does its job? These are basic questions, but just because they’re basic, that doesn’t mean you should just gloss over them.
4. Do you actually have the problem this tool will solve?
Sometimes it’s just fun to buy new stuff. It happens to all of us! But if you or your team are prioritizing hype over utility, put your wallet back in your pocket.
5. Do you have tunnel vision?
You argue for Drupal. Your senior engineer makes a case for Wordpress. And around and around you go. But have you considered Joomla? If you’re committed to investing in a capability, make sure you’re evaluating all of your options — not just the ones you know about.
6. Can you put your ego aside and ask for help?
You know your business; it’s okay to admit that you don’t know everything about software development tools. So break out of your bubble. Ask a friend. Whatever you do, get some other perspectives and make an informed decision.
Sodo runs two-day intensive workshops that help people understand and manage technical teams. Check out our workshops for business leaders and project and product managers.
