What is the Tech Radar?

The e-conomic Tech Radar is a list of technologies that we either use or want to use. Anyone can propose adding/removing/updating new technologies. These technologies have to go through a couple of phases (ASSESS -> ONBOARD -> USE) before it reaches a wide use in E-conomic.

We use four rings with the following semantics:

• USE — Technologies we have high confidence in to serve our purpose, also at a large scale. Technologies with a usage culture in our E-conomic production environment, low risk and recommended to be widely used.
• ASSESS — We have 2 Assess types: Technologies that are promising (have clear potential value-add for us) and technologies we are assessing to deprecate (which are becoming a bottleneck rather than a help); For the first type, we consider them worth investing some research and prototyping efforts in to see if it has impact. ASSESS Type1 technologies have higher risks; they are often brand new and highly unproven in our organisation. You will find some engineers that have knowledge in the technology and promote it, you may even find teams that have started a prototyping effort. Lastly, you can add technologies there if you want to recommend or discuss about it with a wider audience. ASSESS Type2 technologies are considered a risk if we continue using them or they became technical debt. The 2 possible workflows are: Assess -> Deprecate and Assess -> Onboard
• ONBOARD — Technologies that we have seen work with success in project work to solve a real problem; first serious usage experience that confirm benefits and can uncover limitations. ONBOARD technologies are slightly more risky; some engineers in our organization walked this path and will share knowledge and experiences. They should be onboarded more so we learn more about their benefits and drawbacks. When we are condident with these, we can move them into the "USE" ring
• DEPRECATE — Technologies not recommended to be used for new projects. Technologies that we think are not worth to (further) invest in. "DEPRECATE" technologies should not be used for new projects. We should try to deprecate these technologies. Moreover, when we deprecate a technology, we often need a replacement. When that's the case, please link an ADR to a decision of why to deprecate that technology and what to replace it with.

What is the purpose?

The Tech Radar is a tool to inspire and support Engineering teams at E-conomic to pick the best technologies for new projects; it provides a platform to share knowledge and experience in technologies, to reflect on technology decisions and continuously evolve our technology landscape. Our Tech Radar sets out the changes in technologies that are interesting in software development — changes that we think our engineering teams should pay attention to and use in their projects.

How do we maintain it?

The Tech Radar is maintained by our Engineers — who facilitate and drive the technology selection discussions at E-conomic across the Engineering Community. Assignment of technologies to rings is the outcome of ring change proposals, which are discussed and voted on. The Tech Radar is open for contribution for all Engineering teams at E-conomic and depends on their active participation to share lessons learned, pitfalls, and contribute to good practices on using the technologies.