It IS the tools
Last time, we observed that minor differences, no matter how fiercely debated, have little to do with a project's success or failure.
But it's indisputable that tools make a tremendous difference in productivity, developer experience, and, because of that, project outcome. So what's going on?
No tool will fix a broken strategy, but the right tool within your chosen strategy can amplify momentum when things are going well. Look for tools that
reduce friction
lighten the cognitive load
preserve optionality
Let's talk about the first one today.
Fast is better than slow.
Friction is the silent killer of projects, a death by a thousand paper cuts. Prioritize tools that do the same thing but faster, with fewer context switches and minimal setup. These tools might cost more upfront, but the savings in avoided mistakes and reclaimed time often outweigh the price tag.
This principle applies across every phase of a project:
Your IDE should make finding what you need quick and seamless.
Your test/build pipeline: The faster it runs, the less likely you lose focus or momentum while waiting for results.
Your code review process: Keep it swift. Bottlenecks from slow reviews can kill progress. Better yet, use non-blocking reviews whenever possible.
Your project management approach: It should make deciding what to work on next fast and intuitive, without endless meetings
Your MLOps setup: Rapid feedback is critical. Tools that streamline training, model evaluation, and deployment save hours of manual work and debugging.
Your CI/CD system: Deployments should be fast and reliable so you can focus on delivering value instead of firefighting pipelines.
Your data workflows: ETL pipelines that are slow or opaque make exploring data and iterating on features an uphill battle. Invest in tools that make it easy to preprocess and validate data.
Your communication tools: Team collaboration should be fast and frictionless. A slow or cumbersome chat, documentation, or ticketing system can sap time and energy.
As engineers, we’re encouraged to be scrappy and do more with less. That’s laudable, but if it makes us spend time on things tangential to the problem we’re solving, it’s a false economy.
