5 exercises — practice the language for Tech Radar rings, blips, quadrants, and technology assessment communication.
0 / 5 completed
The four Tech Radar rings
Adopt: Use this in production — it is our recommended default.
Trial: Use it on a real project, but with caution. Be prepared to share learnings.
Assess: Explore it. Research and watch how it evolves. Not ready for production.
Hold: Avoid starting new work with this. Existing uses may continue.
1 / 5
Your team is discussing a new framework and someone says: "We should put React Server Components on the radar — it's worth assessing."
Which Tech Radar ring does this suggest?
Assess is the ring for technologies worth exploring but not yet ready to use in production. It means: "We think this is interesting, research it, and keep an eye on it." This is different from Trial (use it on a low-risk project) or Adopt (use it confidently in production). The language "worth assessing" directly maps to the Assess ring.
2 / 5
A senior engineer says in a platform meeting: "We're moving Kafka from Trial to Adopt."
What does this mean for the team?
Moving from Trial to Adopt means the technology has been validated in a real project and is now considered safe for broad use. The Adopt ring signals: "We use this confidently in production; this is our default choice." Trial means "use it, but be prepared to learn." The move to Adopt removes that caveat.
3 / 5
Complete the sentence from a tech radar update email:
"After further evaluation, we are moving GraphQL Federation to _____ — we've seen scalability concerns in production that make us cautious about recommending it for new projects."
Hold is the ring for technologies the team advises against using in new work. It does not mean "abandon existing uses immediately" — it means "don't start new projects with this." The mention of scalability concerns in production is a classic reason for a Hold decision. Hold is a signal to the organisation, not a ban.
4 / 5
In Tech Radar terminology, what is a blip?
A blip is a single item on the radar — it could be a language (TypeScript), a tool (Terraform), a technique (trunk-based development), or a platform (AWS EKS). Each blip has a name, a ring, a quadrant, and a description explaining the rationale for its position. New blips and ring movements are the key outcomes of a radar update cycle.
5 / 5
Your tech radar has four quadrants. A new observability tool is being evaluated. In which quadrant would you place it?
The ThoughtWorks Tech Radar uses four standard quadrants: Techniques (practices like trunk-based development), Tools (software tools like Grafana, DataDog), Platforms (infrastructure platforms like AWS, GCP), and Languages & Frameworks (TypeScript, React). An observability tool like Grafana or Honeycomb belongs in the Tools quadrant.