Driving a Tech Strategy with a Tech Radar
Why do we need a tech strategy?
The tech industry is moving fast and staying up-to-date has become a necessity for any company that wants to remain competitive. At Comsysto Reply, we realized that it’s not enough to just follow the latest trends. We have to align the technologies our people are passionate about with the actual needs of the market.
We started developing a tech strategy a few years ago with this in mind. It’s a strategy that empowers our employees with the freedom to explore and learn about new technologies. Being a software consultancy, we also need to make sure that the tech stack we develop is always adjusted to what the market requires.
This post series will guide you through the process of how we’ve cultivated a culture of learning and innovation, how we visualize and adjust our tech strategy using a specialized tool, and how we make sure that the right tech knowledge is shared and applied within our company. You can learn from our experience and get inspired on how to tackle your challenge of defining and maintaining a tech strategy at your company.
This is the first post in the series, where we will focus on the strategy and tech radar part. The second post about how we effectively share knowledge in our company will be linked here, as soon as we have published it.
Freedom to learn
In the heart of Comsysto Reply lies a fundamental belief: nurturing the curiosity of our colleagues feeds innovation. That’s why every employee has a time budget for self-directed learning and education. Whether it’s through experimenting in tech labs, attending conferences, or engaging in trainings, this time is a enabler for continual growth and understanding of current tech trends.
Our team is driven by the desire to know more and do better. We’re not just keeping pace with the tech world; we’re actively shaping our proficiency in the tools and technologies that are reshaping our industry. It’s this energy that keeps us at the forefront, allowing us to offer cutting-edge solutions to our clients.
However, with so much exploration, our tech stack can develop in a rather unstructured way.
On an organizational level these results in a lot of small groups of experts in many different topics. This is great for making informed decisions, but makes it really challenging when it comes to selecting and staffing projects.
Also, for the individual it is often frustrating if they spend their time learning things, which do not find their way into our projects. To ensure that we’re not just collecting technologies but making strategic choices, we use a tool called tech radar. It’s a visual representation of our collective tech exploration, helping us to map out and focus on what is truly beneficial both for our growth and for meeting customer needs.
So, it’s not just about the freedom to explore; it’s about channeling that exploration into a shared vision. That’s where our tech strategy comes into play, and the tech radar is a key component of this strategy. It guides our choices, making sure we’re moving in the right direction, with the right tools. In the upcoming section, we’ll dive deeper into how the tech radar works and how it helps us to keep our tech strategy aligned with real-world needs.
Tech Radar
The radar itself is usually divided into rings or circles, each with a specific meaning. Typically, the closer an item is to the center, the more important or relevant it is to the company at that particular time. The placement of items is an at-a-glance indicator of their current status — things to adopt, trial, assess, or perhaps hold at bay.
Now, let’s talk about how we, at Comsysto Reply, harness the power of the tech radar to steer our tech strategy.
In the above image you can see the Comsysto tech radar for Q4/2023. We deliberately keep it rather plain, in order to be able to concentrate on the communication of our Tech Strategy. Thus it is divided into the three circles “Experimental”, “Sometimes” and “Common”. Where in “Experimental” you can find technologies and methodologies which we might use occasionally or are currently evaluating the application in our everyday projects. So, “Experimental” does not refer to the state the technology is in at the moment. It refers to being an experiment for us as a company and our tech strategy. The “Sometimes”-section holds entries, which have proven themselves as useful for us and therefore belong to our tech stack, but aren’t (yet) part of our “Common” stack. In the latter you will find our core technologies, that are present in the majority of our projects. We expect each and every employee to have some degree of experience with them.
Each entry should be attached to a strategic intent. It may be simply keeping an eye on them, or actively building up and sharing knowledge within the company.
Taking WebAssembly as an example for an entry of the “Experimental” layer, we did research in this field, built POCs, tried to find valid use cases in our current customer projects and came to the conclusion that the technology is interesting, but not something we currently have to drive actively. At least for the moment. Generative AI, on the other hand, proved itself to be a topic we can not ignore. Therefore we are defining a way forward on how to gain and spread knowledge.
Regarding the maintenance of our tech radar, it’s not a static chart but a dynamic entity that evolves with input from across our organization. Every colleague can propose additions to the tech radar. This inclusive approach ensures that our radar reflects the breadth of knowledge, interests, and insights of our diverse team.
But with such an influx of suggestions, it’s essential to have a system in place to keep everything on track. That’s where our tech strategy crew comes into play — a group of dedicated individuals responsible for curating the proposals. They sift through the submissions, evaluating each one to ensure that it aligns with our market direction and company needs.
The tech strategy crew also looks at the applicability of these technologies within our projects and for our clients. Their goal is to ensure that our tech radar doesn’t just become a wishlist of cool new tech but remains a carefully curated selection of strategic choices that propel us forward in the industry.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a tech strategy is not just a roadmap; it’s the backbone of aligning a company’s growth with the pulse of the market. At Comsysto Reply, we’ve woven this understanding into the fabric of our organization, offering our employees the freedom to explore, while guiding their discoveries into meaningful contributions.
The tech radar serves as our compass, helping to navigate the vast sea of technological possibilities and chart a course that’s coherent with the needs of our clients and industry.
A tech strategy is never final. We still have room for improvement. Therefore we are very interested in how you approach this challenge at your company. Share your story about alignment and communication of your tech strategy in the comments.
Passion, friendship, honesty, curiosity. If this appeals to you, Comsysto may well be your future. Apply now to join us!
This blogpost is published by Comsysto Reply GmbH
