Formats Unpacked: Thoughtworks' Tech Radar

Hey,

How are you all? Keeping well, I hope.

As you may know, the Storythings team comes from an entertainment background, building our expertise in content formats from our time at the BBC and Channel Four. But we also have a tech background too, working in digital in the early days of the internet for both broadcasters. A big part of our jobs at the time was to translate complex tech ideas for broadcasters. So, it’s always a delight when someone brings us a format that does this really well.

Doing the unpacking today is Matthew Hawn. Matthew works at the intersection of music, tech and AI+data, making tools and products for creative companies like Sony Music, Universal Music, Last.fm, Audio Network, AKQA and the BBC. He also creates playful art projects and location-specific games for intentional communities like Burning Man and the Immersive Entertainment community in the UK.

Over to Matthew…

What's it called? 

Thoughtworks Tech Radar (bi-annual report)

What's the format?

As a product strategist and leader, most of my job is storytelling. It's my role to bring together disciplines — engineering, sales, marketing, design, and business development — and to articulate our shared vision for a company's products. So, having a scaffold for understanding what's going on in technology is critical to what I do.

The techniques, platforms, tools, and languages used to make software are changing all the time, and keeping current is practically a full-time job on its own. I'm not an engineer, but if I'm going to have any credibility with them and help them tell their part of our shared narrative, I need to understand what they're seeing in their space — what's trendy, what's dubious, what's becoming standard operating procedure.

One of the best tools I've found for this is Thoughtworks' Tech Radar — a bi-annual report that they describe as "an opinionated guide to today's tech landscape." What makes it different from other tech frameworks, like Gartner's Magic Quadrant or the Forrester Wave, is that it's not a buying guide for procurement departments. Instead, it's focused on assessing ideas and concepts for the people who actually make software.

Here's how it works: Picture a radar diagram divided into four quadrants — Techniques, Tools, Platforms, and Languages & Frameworks. Scattered across this radar are "blips," each representing something worth paying attention to. But the real genius is in the positioning: each blip sits in one of four rings that give you the context about how you ought to think about it. Every blip lets you click through to a short page dedicated to why it matters right now.

Adopt (innermost ring) — things you should seriously consider using.

Trial — ready for use but not completely proven.

Asses — worth watching closely but maybe not trying yet.

Hold — proceed with caution.

A "Doppler group" of 20 Thoughtworks experts meets twice a year, distilling around 300 potential items down to roughly 100 carefully chosen concepts. Each gets a short explanation of why it matters, informed by input from across their 10,000-person company.

Every blip lets you click through to a short page dedicated to why it matters right now.

What’s the magic that makes it special?

The Tech Radar has become invaluable to my work because it gives me a credible way to stay current with engineering teams without having to become an expert in every emerging technology. When I walk into a room with developers and can reference something from the latest radar — whether it's "Data Product Thinking" or "Fuzz Testing" — I'm speaking their language while showing I understand the broader landscape they're navigating.

But what I love most is how it helps me separate signal from noise. The pace of tech change is almost impossible to keep up with these days, especially in AI. In their most recent radar, 50% of current blips are AI-related, up from 35% just six months earlier. Having a structured way to look at this stuff and separate the wheat from the chaff is essential when you're trying to make strategic decisions about product direction.

The visual format makes complex ideas accessible. That radar metaphor immediately tells you what deserves attention and what level of attention it deserves. When I'm planning roadmaps or trying to help teams understand technical tradeoffs, we as a team have a reference point for where something sits on the radar and everyone immediately gets the context.

The bi-annual rhythm strikes the perfect balance — frequent enough to stay current with rapid change, but not so frequent that it becomes overwhelming or loses its thoughtful,

considered perspective.

I’d also point out that The Tech Radar is first and foremost a great piece of content marketing for Thoughtworks. It gives them an updatable, brand-forward way to show off their expertise, finding new clients and establishing their leadership in assessing and deploying tech for their customers. It’s also a really good learning framework for their teams, spreading knowledge between teams and clients in a way that’s useful for all parties.

Similar formats

Gartner's Magic Quadrant uses a similar visual approach but focuses on evaluating vendors rather than concepts. It's more about "who should we buy from?" rather than "how should we think about building?"

McKinsey's Three Horizons framework also provides a structured way to think about innovation and change, categorising initiatives as core business (Horizon 1), emerging opportunities (Horizon 2), or transformational bets (Horizon 3). While it's broader than tech-specific, it shares that same "proximity to action" logic as the Tech Radar's rings.

Nesta's Standards of Evidence framework takes a similar approach to assessing social innovations, using levels from "You can describe your innovation" through "You have manuals and can replicate it elsewhere." Like the Tech Radar, it provides a clear progression from early ideas to proven approaches.

Some companies have started creating their own internal technology radars, adapting the format for specific industries or team needs. The format's flexibility makes it easy to customise while keeping the core structure that makes it work, proof that it's a genuinely useful way to make sense of complex, rapidly changing landscapes.

Thanks Matthew!

If you’d like help developing format ideas, just hit the button above. We can start by running a Formats Unpacked Workshop to identify potential formats, then help you test your format by producing a pilot episode. Our tried and tested process is a quick and cost-effective way to help your team develop and implement a manageable content strategy.

Get in touch if you have a favourite format you’d like to unpack. We’re always looking for guest contributors.

See you all next time,
Hugh

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