Framework library · Technology management
Technology radar
A technology radar is a short, opinionated list of the technologies, tools and practices that matter to an organisation, each placed in a ring: adopt, trial, assess or hold. Every placement carries a reason and is reviewed on a regular cycle. The hold ring matters as much as the adopt ring, because it is where the organisation says what to stop starting.
Use it when
- Teams choose tools on their own and the estate is drifting into several ways of doing the same thing.
- You want to tell teams what to use, what to try and what to avoid, with reasons, without writing a standards manual.
- A technology strategy needs a regular, visible review of what is being taken up and what is being retired.
Avoid it when
- You need to settle one sourcing or architecture question. Use a build, buy or partner comparison or write an architecture decision record.
- You need to know how mature a technology is in general. A radar records your own organisation's experience. Use technology readiness levels for maturity.
- Nobody has the authority to enforce the hold ring. Without it the radar is a reading list.
How to run it
Choose the quadrants and define the rings
The usual quadrants are techniques, platforms, tools, and languages and frameworks. Change them if your estate is mostly hardware. Write down what each ring means for a team starting new work.
Collect candidate items from the teams
Ask each team what they use, what they are trying and what is hurting them. Write each item specifically: "streaming telemetry from customer edge routers", not "observability".
Place each item with a reason
Adopt needs evidence from your own production use. Trial needs a team that will try it on real work. Assess means worth a closer look. Hold means start no new work with it.
Mark what has moved
New items and items that changed ring since the last edition carry the news. Items that have not moved for a while can drop off.
Name a champion for each item
One person who answers questions about it and reports back at the next edition.
Publish and review on a cycle
Thoughtworks publishes its own radar about every six months. Set a cycle and keep to it. An edition that moves nothing suggests the radar is not being used.
Work through it
Answer the questions below, or load the worked example to see a finished one. The drawing updates as you type. Export the result as a PowerPoint deck, a Word document, an Excel workbook, a PDF or plain text.
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Mistakes to avoid
- Leaving the hold ring empty to avoid upsetting teams. The radar then only ever adds technology, and the estate keeps growing.
- Putting items in adopt because a vendor or a conference recommends them. Adopt is for what your own teams have proven in production.
- Writing items too broadly to place. "Cloud" fits every ring; "a managed container platform for network functions" fits one.
- Publishing rings without reasons. Teams follow a placement they understand and argue with one they do not.
Where it comes from
Thoughtworks published its first Technology Radar in January 2010, placing items in four quadrants (techniques, tools, languages and platforms) and four rings (hold, assess, trial and adopt), and has published it about twice a year since through its Technology Advisory Board. The languages quadrant is now languages and frameworks, and in volume 34 (April 2026) the outer ring was renamed from hold to caution. Thoughtworks invites organisations to build their own radar in the same format. Source.
The Technology Radar was created by Thoughtworks. This workbench is Blue Prysm's own design and is not endorsed by Thoughtworks.
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Further reading
Work through it with us
The frameworks here are free to use as they stand. If you would rather work through the question behind this one with us, these are the ways an engagement starts.