Technology Radar Template

Technology radar: quadrants, adopt/trial/assess/hold rings, blip table with movement and rationale, governance and cadence

Architektur & SystemdesignStandardTechnology radar concept (Thoughtworks)tech radarAktualisiert 20.10.2026

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Anleitung: Use it to share the organisation's technology choices every few months. Define rings and quadrants first, then add blips with local evidence. The main pitfall is copying placements from a public radar instead of your own experience.

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Technology Radar: [Organisation name], [Edition YYYY-MM]

An organisation's view of the technologies it uses or is considering, grouped into four quadrants (techniques; platforms; tools; languages and frameworks) and placed in four rings (adopt, trial, assess, hold), with the reasoning, owner and movement since the last edition. Based on the technology radar concept popularised by Thoughtworks; all text here is original. Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example.

Field	Value
Edition	[2026-10]
Scope	[All engineering teams / Data platform / Mobile]
Owner	[@architecture-guild]
Contributors	[Names or teams]
Previous edition	[Link]
Next edition due	YYYY-MM-DD
Status	[Draft / Published]

1. Purpose and how to read the radar

This radar helps teams pick technologies with confidence and shows where the organisation is heading. A blip's ring is advice based on experience inside [organisation]. It is not a mandate: teams can use technologies in any ring, but technologies in Hold need a recorded reason (section 6.3). Anything not on the radar is neither approved nor forbidden; propose it (section 6.1).

2. Quadrants

Quadrant	What belongs here	Examples of kinds of blips
Techniques	Ways of working, practices, architectural and process approaches	Trunk-based development, architecture decision records, threat modelling
Platforms	Things we build and run software on: cloud services, databases, runtimes, infrastructure	Managed Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, a message broker
Tools	Software that helps us build, test, deploy and operate, but is not the platform	Build tools, linters, observability tools, IaC tools
Languages and frameworks	Programming languages and the frameworks and libraries we build on	TypeScript, Spring Boot, React

3. Rings

Ring	Meaning for teams	Evidence required to place a blip here
Adopt	Default choice. Use it unless you have a good reason not to. Supported by shared tooling and knowledge.	Used in production by several teams with good results; support and skills exist
Trial	Worth using on a real project where you can manage the risk. Share what you learn.	At least one team has used it in production or a serious pilot with positive results
Assess	Worth exploring to understand how it could affect us. Spikes and prototypes, not production.	Credible promise for a known problem; someone willing to investigate
Hold	Do not start anything new with it. Existing use may continue, with a plan where needed.	Poor experience, better alternative, risk, or end of support

4. Blip entries

ID	Name	Quadrant	Ring	Movement	Rationale	Owner
TR-001	Example: Architecture decision records	Techniques	Adopt	No change	Used by all teams since 2024; onboarding feedback says ADRs explain past choices well	@architecture-guild
TR-002	Example: Contract testing for internal APIs	Techniques	Trial	New	Payments and Orders cut integration incidents by half in two quarters; needs wider tooling support	@qa-guild
TR-003	Example: Long-lived feature branches	Techniques	Hold	No change	Merge pain and late integration; use trunk-based development with feature flags	@eng-excellence
TR-004	Example: Managed PostgreSQL	Platforms	Adopt	No change	Default relational store; platform team operates it with backups and upgrades	@platform-data
TR-005	Example: Self-hosted message broker cluster	Platforms	Hold	Moved out	Operating cost and two major incidents; use managed streaming service	@platform-runtime
TR-006	Example: Serverless containers for batch jobs	Platforms	Assess	New	Could remove idle cluster cost for nightly jobs; cold start and quota limits unknown	@platform-runtime
TR-007	Example: OpenTelemetry SDKs	Tools	Adopt	Moved in	Replaced vendor agents in 80% of services; vendor-neutral and well supported	@sre
TR-008	Example: AI code review assistant	Tools	Trial	New	Two teams report faster reviews; watch false positives and data handling rules	@dev-experience
TR-009	Example: TypeScript	Languages and frameworks	Adopt	No change	Default for web and Node.js services	@frontend-guild
TR-010	Example: In-house UI component library v1	Languages and frameworks	Hold	Moved out	Replaced by design system v2; migrate when touching screens	@design-system
[TR-NNN]	[Name]	[Quadrant]	[Ring]	[New / Moved in / Moved out / No change]	[Rationale]	[@owner]

5. Edition summary

Theme	Summary	Related blips
Example: Fewer self-hosted platforms	We move operational load to managed services where cost allows	TR-005, TR-006
Example: Testing earlier	Contract testing and preview environments shorten feedback loops	TR-002
[Theme]	[Summary]	[IDs]

Blip count by ring in this edition:

Quadrant	Adopt	Trial	Assess	Hold
Techniques	[n]	[n]	[n]	[n]
Platforms	[n]	[n]	[n]	[n]
Tools	[n]	[n]	[n]	[n]
Languages and frameworks	[n]	[n]	[n]	[n]

6. Governance and cadence

6.1 Proposing a change

Anyone can propose a new blip or a move by opening a pull request against the radar data file with name, quadrant, proposed ring, rationale and evidence (links to ADRs, incident reports, pilot results). Proposals for Adopt need a named owner willing to support other teams.

6.2 Deciding

The radar group ([architecture guild plus one representative per engineering area]) reviews proposals in the edition session. Decisions are by consensus; when there is none, the blip stays where it is and the disagreement is recorded in its rationale.

6.3 Using technologies in Hold

New use of a Hold technology requires an ADR stating why the alternative does not fit, approved by [@chief-architect]. Existing use is reviewed when the system is next significantly changed.

6.4 Cadence

Activity	Frequency	Owner
Collect proposals	Continuous	Anyone
Edition session (half day)	Every [6 months]	@architecture-guild
Publish edition and summary	Within 2 weeks of the session	@architecture-guild
Review stale blips (no movement for 3 editions)	Each edition	Radar group

7. Change log

Edition	Date	Blips added	Blips moved	Blips removed
Example: 2026-04	YYYY-MM-DD	8	5	6
[Edition]	YYYY-MM-DD	[n]	[n]	[n]

Standard and licence note

Based on the technology radar concept (four quadrants and four rings: adopt, trial, assess, hold) popularised by Thoughtworks through its Technology Radar publication. No text or blip placements from any published radar are reproduced; all definitions, guidance and examples are original to this collection. Template licence: MIT.