How to Propose a Tech Radar Entry in English
Learn how to write and present a technology radar entry in English — recommending a tool or pattern be adopted, trialed, held, or retired, with clear reasoning your team can act on.
A tech radar — popularised by ThoughtWorks — is a shared document tracking which tools, languages, and practices a team should adopt, trial, use with caution (“hold”), or stop using entirely. Proposing a new entry means making a case in English precise enough that other engineers, who may not have used the tool themselves, can evaluate your recommendation fairly and act on it consistently.
Key Vocabulary
Ring (Adopt / Trial / Assess / Hold) — the four typical categories a tech radar entry falls into, representing a maturity and confidence level rather than a strict popularity ranking. “I’m proposing this move from ‘Assess’ to ‘Trial’ — we’ve used it successfully on one internal service and want broader validation before recommending it for adoption.”
Adopt — a strong recommendation to use this by default for new projects, backed by demonstrated success across the organisation.
Trial — worth pursuing on a real project, understanding the risks, but not yet proven enough for a blanket recommendation.
Assess — worth exploring to understand its potential fit, but not yet ready to be used on anything beyond a spike or prototype.
Hold — proceed with caution; this includes newly deprecated or high-risk technologies the team should avoid adopting further, even if some legacy usage remains.
Blip — the individual entry itself (a specific tool, technique, platform, or language) being placed on the radar. “This blip covers our evaluation of the new ORM — I’ve included both the benchmark results and the migration cost estimate.”
Structuring the Proposal
- What it is: “[Tool name] is a [category] that [core function], commonly used for [use case].”
- Why we’re considering it: “Our current approach has [specific pain point] — this tool addresses that by [mechanism].”
- Evidence so far: “We ran a two-week spike using it on [service], and saw [specific measured outcome].”
- Recommended ring and rationale: “I’m proposing ‘Trial’ rather than ‘Adopt’ because we haven’t yet validated it under production load.”
- Risks and open questions: “The main risk is vendor lock-in — before broader adoption, we should confirm there’s a viable migration path away from it if needed.”
Presenting to the Architecture Group
- “I’d like to propose we move [tool] from ‘Assess’ to ‘Trial.’ The prototype showed a 40% reduction in boilerplate for this specific use case, and I think it’s worth validating on a real service.”
- “This isn’t a proposal to migrate everything — I’m suggesting we allow one team to trial it on a low-risk service and report back in a quarter.”
- “I want to flag this as a ‘Hold’ rather than remove it from the radar entirely — some teams still depend on it, and I don’t want this to read as an urgent migration mandate.”
Handling Disagreement
- “I hear the concern about operational overhead — could we scope the trial narrowly, to just the reporting service, so the blast radius is limited if it doesn’t work out?”
- “That’s a fair point about the learning curve. I’d suggest we pair the trial with a short internal workshop so the team isn’t learning it entirely on their own.”
- “I don’t think we have enough evidence yet to move this to ‘Adopt’ — I’d rather keep it at ‘Trial’ for another cycle and revisit with more data.”
Professional Tips
- Anchor the recommendation in evidence, not enthusiasm. “I really like this tool” is a weaker argument than “this cut our build time by 35% in a two-week spike.”
- Be explicit about scope. A trial recommendation for one low-risk service reads very differently from an unscoped “let’s use this everywhere” proposal.
- Always note the risks alongside the benefits. A one-sided pitch tends to get more scrutiny in review, not less — naming the trade-offs upfront builds credibility.
Practice Exercise
- Write a one-paragraph pitch moving a tool from “Assess” to “Trial,” including one piece of concrete evidence.
- Draft a response to a colleague who disagrees with your proposed ring, offering a scoped compromise.
- Write a short “Hold” entry for a tool your team is deliberately moving away from, without sounding alarmist.