What is the Tech Radar?

The SeaBird Tech Radar is a list of technologies, complemented by an assessment result, called ring assignment. We use four rings with the following semantics:

  • ADOPT — Technologies we have high confidence in to serve our purpose, also in large scale. Technologies with a usage culture in our SeaBird production environment. We recruit people with those skills or we have a strong training path.
  • TRIAL — 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. However, those technologies are not mastered by at least half of the community and we are not fully confident to go on those projects.
  • ASSESS — Technologies that are promising and have clear potential value-add for us; technologies worth to invest some research and prototyping efforts in to see if it has impact. ASSESS technologies have higher risks. Those technologies are mastered by a few people of the community and we are not confident to go on those project.
  • HOLD — Technologies not recommended to be used for new projects. Technologies that we think are not (yet) worth to (further) invest in. HOLD technologies should not be used for new projects, but usually can be continued for existing projects.

What is the purpose?

The Tech Radar is a tool to inspire and support Engineering teams at SeaBird 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. Based on the pioneering work of ThoughtWorks, 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 Principal Engineers — who facilitate and drive the technology selection discussions at SeaBird 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 SeaBird and depends on their active participation to share lessons learned, pitfalls, and contribute to good practices on using the technologies.