[Aqua]

This sounds substantially overengineered way to justify his actions and relieve his conscience. In an organization of 17 people a person in his position would know exactly which people would work together to build a great team and which would not. In such a small team it's as much about the roles as it is about the people themselves, his method apparently completely dismisses that element of the decision.

[Closi]

I don’t think the reorganisation into two teams was necessarily obvious.

Secondly, when you are making a decision like this which impacts the course of other people’s lives, I personally believe that you should use a level of structured decision making rather than a gut feeling of who ‘fits into the team’ best.

Overengineered? Probably, but at least it showed a clear thought process. Also he stated he considered team dynamics once he had some candidate options.

[Aeolun]

Maybe not if you are on day 2 of your position as CTO?

[jacquesm]

Precisely. On day 2 you are still taking stock and figuring out the lay of the land, and you're in absolutely no position to start making decisions with far reaching consequences. The first thing you will want to figure out is what happened with the previous CTO and why that person left.