The Thoughtworks Technology Radar
How the Radar is created and recent themes from the report.
This is the latest issue of my newsletter. Each week I cover the latest research and perspectives on developer productivity.
Earlier this week, I published a podcast with Rebecca Parsons, Camilla Crispim, and Erik Dörnenburg from Thoughtworks’ Technology Advisory Board discussing the Technology Radar. This biannual report offers insights into the tools and techniques being adopted by organizations today.
I’ve heard from several newsletter subscribers who are long-time followers of the Tech Radar. So in this interview, I asked the Thoughtworks team about what sets the Radar apart and how the reports are created.
Today’s newsletter is a lightly edited version of my conversation with Rebecca, Erik, and Camilla. If you’re a fan of the Radar, this issue should help you make better use of the report.
You can also listen to the full conversation here.
What the Tech Radar is
Rebecca Parsons: The Tech Radar is our take on the breadth of technologies that Thoughtworks has exposure to. There are three core components: the four quadrants, which include frameworks, tools, techniques, and platforms. There are the blips, which refer to specific technologies, platforms, or practices. And there are the four rings:
The outer ring is the Hold ring. This is probably the most ambiguous ring because it might mean “don't go there yet; it's not ready.” Or it might also mean, “please stop doing this. This is not a good idea anymore.”
Then there’s the Assess ring, which means, “This looks interesting.” We're not saying you should use it yet, but this might be something you want to take a look at.
The Trial ring is something that we have actual production experience with. This is something that we believe our enterprise clients can use in real projects.
Then, the Adopt ring is something that we think is the sensible default for its category.
The Tech Radar is a compilation of our global experiences with a broad range of technologies. There are several key aspects to that. The first is “global” because the experience that people have with technology in Singapore might be different than what people have in Brazil, India, or Germany. We source all our projects across all of our currently 18 countries to find out what our people are actually using, and what their specific experiences are with it. We want the report to be very grounded in actual experience as opposed to “this is what the vendor has to say about things.” For example, we might say, “it might say on the tin that you can do this with it, but we wouldn't recommend it because there are these sorts of problems.” So the report is grounded in actual experience, it’s globally sourced, and it covers a broad range of technologies.
“We want the report to be very grounded in actual experience as opposed to “this is what the vendor has to say about things.”
We make no claims that the Tech Radar is comprehensive. We very often get the question, “Why isn't X on the list?” “Well, because none of our teams have used it.” We also make no attempts to talk to the people responsible — I got an email not all that long ago, "Why didn't you talk to us before you put us on your radar?" We do not talk to anybody. This is solely based on our experience, and that's all it's based on. You can't pay to get on the radar. The way to get on the radar is for one of our teams to have some actual experience with it.
Erik Dörnenburg: I would add one more thing to your list, and that is that the radar is recent. It's a snapshot of what we've seen the last six months. That's often the answer to the question of why something is not on the radar. It is simply that we have mentioned it six months before, 12 months before. We do not keep everything on the radar. Every six months, we report on what we've discovered for ourselves in the previous six months, and that is what we report on.
“We do not keep everything on the radar. Every six months, we report on what we've discovered for ourselves in the previous six months, and that is what we report on.”
Why the Radar exists
Rebecca Parsons: One of the common questions we get asked when consulting with our clients is “Tell me what's happening elsewhere.” The Radar is a vehicle to tell people what's happening elsewhere.
Erik Dörnenburg: And in many ways, what Rebecca is describing is about de-risking. People know about new technologies but don’t know whether they should jump on them, and they don't necessarily have the time to experiment with them.
Also increasingly, I’m hearing from people who see it not only as a risk mitigation mechanism but as a discovery mechanism. For them it’s less “I know about this technology, but I haven't had a chance to try it.” It’s more about finding technology they didn’t know existed.
How it‘s produced
Camilla Crispim: The process begins with a nomination phase, during which individuals across Thoughtworks propose blips. We have different formats for collecting blips: people might join one of our calls, fill a form, or ping us privately and ask us to consider something. We go out across Thoughtworks and talk to as many people as we can to get as many blip proposals with as much information as we can. For example, I think the last Radar we had was something like 367 blip proposals.
Then there’s a process for people who are involved in the collection process to pitch the blip they want included on the Radar, and the group votes for where on the Radar the blip should be. We’re not yet deciding whether something should or shouldn’t be on the Radar. We’re voting for the blip to be on a certain quadrant or ring.
Rebecca Parsons: It's important to talk about the people that are involved in the different phases. There is a group internally we call a Doppler for the Radar, and that is the group that actually makes the decisions about what ends up on the report. After the collection process, which Camilla described, that list goes to the Doppler group to decide, yes, this is important enough to be included, or no, this is not. We aim for roughly 100 blips at the end.
So each Radar comes with about 100 blips from the previous volume, and then we have all the new entries. We filter these down through multiple iterations, and also look at blips that might be moving from, say, Assess to Trial because we have more experience with it. After that meeting, the Doppler group has roughly 100 write-ups to do. We then send those out to review and incorporate comments from Thoughtworkers who are using the technology.
Then, the publication process begins. We publish it in Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Recent themes covered in the Radar
Each Radar distills the key themes from that report. Here’s a summary of the themes from recent issues:
AI-assisted development: As expected, AI-assisted development was a top theme from the most recent Radar. The report names the tools GitHub Copilot, Tabnine, and Codeium, and adds: “We see great promise in the explosion of tools and capabilities for assistance beyond coding as well, such as user story writeup assistance, user research, elevator pitches and other language-based chores.”
Measuring developer productivity. The authors observe that “the industry has started focusing on engineering effectiveness: rather than measure productivity, we should measure things we know contribute to or detract from the flow. Instead of focusing on an individual’s activities, we should focus on the sources of waste in the system and the conditions we can empirically show have an impact on the developer’s perception of “productivity.”
Platforms as a product. The root cause of many problems that organizations experience with internal platforms is the failure to properly treat them as products. “Many platforms intended to be consumed by developers lack the user research and contextual analysis we expect in other types of products. Platform owners need to validate their assumptions about developers’ needs and respond to actual usage patterns. And like any good product, a platform needs ongoing support… The “platform as a product” metaphor only works when fully embraced as a practice rather than a trendy phrase."
Final thoughts
The Tech Radar is widely used as way to identify and de-risk technologies and practices that are relevant to them. What I find most interesting about the Radar is that it’s rooted in the practical experiences of Thoughtworkers, giving a unique perspective on the technologies and practices that organizations should adopt.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading.
-Abi