You should also consider market opinion and your own engineering team. Small paths are not only drawn by urban planners, but above all by those who use them. What's really important is adoption within your team and organization. There's no silver bullet, but an extensible tool with interfaces and an open code base might be a smart strategy.

Choosing the right software development tools is crucial for your team's success. Consider the project's size and complexity, team skills and preferences, budget, timeline, and tool compatibility and security. Evaluate each tool's features, functionality, and usability, and compare alternatives. Opt for tools that are easy to learn and use, support your development methodology and practices, and offer good value for money. The right tools can enhance productivity, collaboration, and project quality.

Sometimes some units in an organisation might be ready using a particular tool , so we should talk to other software development teams to get their recommendations for tools. Find out what tools they are using and why they like them. In my experience many software development tools offer free trials. This is a great way to try out different tools before you commit to buying them.

The second step in using software development tools effectively is to set up clear workflows and standards for your team. Define how to use the tools for code management, team communication, functionality testing, and solution deployment. Establish rules for naming conventions, coding styles, documentation, version control, branching, merging, reviewing, testing, and deploying. Clear workflows and standards prevent confusion and errors, ensuring consistency and that everyone is aligned.

In my experience, it's really important to keep it as simple as possible with a workflow. In an ideal world, you should create something as intuitive and reusable as possible with the entire team in your organization. Using a scaled agile framework, for example, can help you manage your tooling concerns.

The third step in using software development tools effectively is seamless integration. Ensure your tools work well together and exchange data smoothly. For instance, integrate your code editor with your version control system, your version control with your issue tracker, your issue tracker with your communication platform, your communication platform with your testing tool, and your testing tool with your deployment tool. This streamlines processes, automates tasks, and boosts productivity and quality.

The fourth step in using software development tools effectively is training your team members. Ensure everyone knows how to use the tools properly and is comfortable with them. Provide support through tutorials, manuals, videos, FAQs, or mentors. Effective training reduces the learning curve, boosts adoption rates, and enhances team performance and satisfaction. Proper training ensures that your team can fully leverage the tools' capabilities, leading to better project outcomes.

Training is one of the most important steps. Not every engineer is a 'tool geek' and will look up YouTube videos and play around to really become a power user. You need solid boot camp style training that has different levels from basic user to power user. The best tools in the world will not help the team if the team can't use them or use them effectively.

It's important not to focus too much on one specific tool within your company. It is all the more risky as you have and will have many tools to maintain. One of the last facts to consider, but not the least, is that the tools are constantly changing and improving. It is pointless and unproductive to spend too much time and effort on dedicated tools for a dedicated need, but find a different golden path in your organization to meet your needs.

One common overlooked area is configuration management of the tools in the development environment. This is especially crucial when dealing with software that undergoes some kind of regulatory approval. When your team scales, it can be hard to make sure that everyone installed the correct version of tools and that prerequisites are met (e.g. java runtime version). Having a good CM process to ensure everyone is on the same version and updates can be rolled out smoothly is crucial, especially in large scale DevOps environments. Consider using Docker containers, holistic custom installers, VMs, etc. To make deployment and control easier.