Catalog
method#Governance#Product#Architecture#Delivery

Radar

Radar is a method for systematically assessing and prioritizing technologies, practices, and product ideas through periodic reviews and visualization.

Radar is a structured method for assessing and prioritizing technologies, practices, and product opportunities within organizations.
Established
Medium

Classification

  • Medium
  • Organizational
  • Organizational
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Product roadmap tools (e.g., Jira, Azure Boards)Documentation and knowledge platforms (Confluence)Metrics and observability tools

Principles & goals

Transparency of evaluation criteriaRegular timeboxed reviewsConsensus-driven decisions with clear ownership
Discovery
Enterprise, Domain, Team

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Dilution by political influence
  • Over-prioritization of popular but unsuitable technologies
  • False sense of security if applied superficially
  • Use clear, documented evaluation criteria
  • Include cross-functional review teams
  • Actively communicate and follow up on results

I/O & resources

  • Technology and practice inventory
  • Evaluation criteria and metrics
  • Stakeholder feedback and business objectives
  • Updated radar with categorization
  • Recommendations for Adopt, Trial, Hold, Assess
  • Documented decisions and ownerships

Description

Radar is a structured method for assessing and prioritizing technologies, practices, and product opportunities within organizations. It combines periodic reviews, categorization and visualization to guide decisions. Radar supports governance, portfolio selection and continuous learning by providing transparent classification and recurring iteration.

✔

  • Better prioritization of investments
  • Shared understanding of risks and opportunities
  • Encourages learning and experimentation

✖

  • Requires discipline for regular execution
  • Coarse categories may hide important details
  • Needs clear criteria, otherwise results become subjective

  • Share of adopted recommendations

    Percentage of radar recommendations that were implemented.

  • Average assessment duration

    Effort/time required for a full radar cycle from preparation to publication.

  • Stakeholder satisfaction with decisions

    Qualitative measure of perception and acceptance of radar decisions.

ThoughtWorks Technology Radar (inspiration)

Regular radar example that categorizes technologies and practices and communicates them broadly.

Internal product strategy of a SaaS provider

Use of a radar format to prioritize integrations and architecture decisions in the product portfolio.

Team health radar for organizational learning

Adaptation of the radar to measure team maturity and plan targeted development actions.

1

Define criteria and categories (Adopt/Trial/Hold/Assess)

2

Build an inventory and collect inputs

3

Run initial review cycles and refine the process

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Orphaned pilots without exit strategy
  • Unmaintained inventory that hampers decisions
  • Missing automation for data collection
Decision frequencyEvaluation resourcesClear criteria and metrics
  • Introducing radar without governance backing
  • Excessive granularity that slows down adoption
  • Publishing sensitive decisions without alignment
  • Confusing popularity with suitability
  • Insufficient follow-up on decisions
  • Lack of neutrality in categorization due to conflicts of interest
Facilitation and consensus skillsTechnical evaluation expertiseGovernance and portfolio understanding
Reusability of componentsInteroperability between domainsScalability and operational resilience
  • • Time resources for reviews
  • • Access to reliable metrics
  • • Binding nature of governance decisions