tech-radar ยท diff
git:20260718.7c1285c to git:20260728.fac4544
33 added, 29 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: tech-radar
description: Maintain a tech radar that sorts technologies into adopt, trial, assess, and hold against a real evidence bar, and pairs each adoption with a sunset. Use when an organization needs a shared, current view of which tools and techniques to reach for and which to retire.
---
# Tech radar
- A tech radar, in the form ThoughtWorks made common, places technologies into four
- rings so a whole organization shares one opinion about what to reach for. It
- decays into a list of things someone thought were cool: entries with no evidence
- behind the ring, nothing ever moving to hold, and adoptions that quietly pile new
- tools on top of the old without ever removing anything. A radar earns its keep
- by having a bar and by retiring as deliberately as it adopts.
+ A tech radar, in the form ThoughtWorks made common, places technologies into
+ four rings so a whole organization shares one opinion about what to reach for.
+ It decays into a list of things someone thought were cool: entries with no
+ evidence behind the ring, nothing ever moving to hold, and adoptions that
+ quietly pile new tools on top of the old without ever removing anything. A radar
+ earns its keep by having a bar and by retiring as deliberately as it adopts.
## Method
- 1. **Sort every entry into exactly one of four rings.** Adopt: proven here, use it
- by default. Trial: worth using on a real project with a fallback. Assess: worth
- a spike to understand, not yet a bet. Hold: do not start anything new with it.
- The ring is a recommendation for action, not a rating of how interesting a thing is.
- 2. **Require evidence to move inward, and raise the bar per ring.** Assess needs a
- credible reason to look. Trial needs at least one team that shipped something
- real with it. Adopt needs multiple teams, production mileage, and a story for
- operating it. "A senior engineer likes it" moves nothing on its own.
+ 1. **Sort every entry into exactly one of four rings.** Adopt: proven here, use
+ it by default. Trial: worth using on a real project with a fallback. Assess:
+ worth a spike to understand, not yet a bet. Hold: do not start anything new
+ with it. The ring is a recommendation for action, not a rating of how
+ interesting a thing is.
+ 2. **Require evidence to move inward, and raise the bar per ring.** Assess needs
+ a credible reason to look. Trial needs at least one team that shipped
+ something real with it. Adopt needs multiple teams, production mileage, and a
+ story for operating it. "A senior engineer likes it" moves nothing on its
+ own.
3. **Pair every adopt with a hold.** When you bless a new tool, name what it
- replaces and move that predecessor to hold in the same review. Adoption without
- retirement is how you accumulate three message queues and four ways to do
- config. The radar's discipline is subtraction, not just addition.
- 4. **Put a named sponsor and a date on each entry.** Someone owns the recommendation
- and the evidence behind it, and every entry carries when it last moved. An
- unsponsored, undated blip is folklore. If no one will put their name on an
- adopt, it is not one.
+ replaces and move that predecessor to hold in the same review. Adoption
+ without retirement is how you accumulate three message queues and four
+ ways to do config. The radar's discipline is subtraction, not just
+ addition.
+ 4. **Put a named sponsor and a date on each entry.** Someone owns the
+ recommendation and the evidence behind it, and every entry carries when it
+ last moved. An unsponsored, undated blip is folklore. If no one will put
+ their name on an adopt, it is not one.
5. **Re-run the radar on a fixed cadence and let things move.** Quarterly or
twice a year, revisit every ring. Things graduate inward with evidence, and
things that disappointed move outward toward hold. A radar where nothing ever
demotes is a monument, not a working document.
- 6. **Write a sentence of rationale per blip, including the risks.** Why this ring,
- what it is good for, and where it bites. The value is in the reasoning a reader
- can weigh, not the position on a chart. A ring with no "why" is an opinion
- asking to be obeyed.
+ 6. **Write a sentence of rationale per blip, including the risks.** Why this
+ ring, what it is good for, and where it bites. The value is in the
+ reasoning a reader can weigh, not the position on a chart. A ring with no
+ "why" is an opinion asking to be obeyed.
## Signals
- Could someone justify each adopt entry with evidence stronger than enthusiasm?
- When something entered adopt, did anything actually move to hold to make room?
- Does every blip have a sponsor and a date it last changed rings?
## Boundaries
- A radar records recommendations; it does not make the architectural decision for a
- specific system, which belongs in a design doc weighing that context. Ring
- definitions and cadence are conventions you set; the point is a consistent
- evidence bar, not copying another company's exact rings.
+ A radar records recommendations; it does not make the architectural
+ decision for a specific system, which belongs in a design doc weighing
+ that context. Ring definitions and cadence are conventions you set; the
+ point is a consistent evidence bar, not copying another company's exact
+ rings.