When I was much younger, I use to play the guitar. For my first guitar, I had bought it at an auction at a market. The pickups didn’t work, the nut was missing, no strings, but I was determined to learn. So I went to the nearest guitar shop that did repairs and took it to them.

Several parts later, I had a working monster, and it was a monster, but it got me started.

Not long after, I got a new guitar. Not much better, it was the cheapest one I could get. It had only 21 frets, and the amp I got was a cheap and nasty from Tandy at the time. What do you expect, I was a poor student at the time. That was when I really learned to play, and so I practiced every chance I got.

One thing I heard or read somewhere at the time that has stuck in my mind is that having a very expensive guitar like the one your favourite guitarist plays does not make a bad guitarist good, they will sound bad regardless, but a great guitarist can make a box and strings sound great and a good guitar sound amazing.

So where am I getting at, well… In my experience, companies go and fork out hundreds of thousands to even millions of dollars for tools or frameworks to help with their corporate development thinking it will save them lots of money, make things easier and or get them there sooner and a lot of the time, these projects generally fail, cost a lot more money, take forever to get off the ground as they wait for approval to spend the funds or end up not being what was envisioned in the first place.

In these circumstances, the time to practice, the time to learn the fundamentals of what this new product is meant to make easier, the time to iterate over your procedures to learn what is the best way to implement, the time to become a good player has not been put in.

My advice is to start learning the fundamentals today. Use open source software (it may surprise you), build your own stuff, cobble together scripts, read, learn, practice. Just workout your own sound. Learn to play with that box and strings and make it sound good so that when you get your new shiny tool, framework etc – you will just sound amazing!