Getting Real: Don't pick the tools ahead of the craftsman.
Would
you settle on a brush and then go look for a painter that could use it?
Or would you rather find a good painter and then let him use the
brushes he sees fit for the task. Put like that, I’d wager few would
argue for the former. But when it comes to technology, it happens all
the time.
The business people settle on a platform and then
invite the programmers. That’s backwards, baby. To attract the best,
you need people working with tools of passion. The correlation between
tools that business people pick and tools that inspire passion from the
best of the best is weak to negative.
You need passionate
craftsmen. The best of them are likely to be ahead of the curve and use
tools that the mainstream haven’t picked up yet. That’s part of what
makes them the best. If you’ve already settled on what you know is out
there, you’ve just cut off the cream of the crop.
Also, why are
you hiring? Hopefully to get expertise in an area where you had little.
Thus, you want to postpone as many decisions in that area until you
have the person best equipped to make the right choices. [Signal vs. Noise]