ThoughtWorks, a global software consultancy hosted India’s first chapter of the Technology Radar Summit 2019 in Bengaluru on 29 June. This Summit was on occasion of Vol. 20 of the Technology Radar’s global launch. The latest edition of the bi-annual report that provides nuanced advice around technologies, tools, techniques, platforms and languages highlights four themes – The Shifting Shape of Data, Terraforming an Ecosystem, Kotlin Klimbing and The Leaking Encapsulation Boundaries.
Due to busy schedule, we could not blog about this event but nevertheless, the learnings are still fresh in our minds. It is important to understand how the core team at ThoughtWorks came up with the idea of the Technology Radar. They came up with the Technology Radar to fulfil their mission to champion software excellence and revolutionize IT. The advisory board, senior technology leaders at ThoughtWorks met for several months to formulate the overall plan of the Technology Radar. The team also comprised of Martin Fowler, Chief Scientist at ThoughtWorks who specializes in object-oriented analysis & design, UML, patterns, and agile software development methodologies, including extreme programming.
Martin Fowler walked the audience through the nuances behind the Technology Radar where he also touched upon the core principles of Radar
- Adopt – Industry should be adopting the items discussed in Radar and use them when appropriate on the projects.
- Trial – It is important to build this capability. Enterprises can try the technologies on a project that can handle the risk.
- Assess – Worth exploring with the goal of understanding how it will affect the enterprise.
- Hold – Proceed with caution.
Martin Fowler also added
What started off as an interesting experiment has now turned into a notable publication that receives a lot of client attention and interest from the global community of technologists. The Radar is relevant to businesses facing disruptive competition who need to understand and apply the philosophy of Tech@core. Our Radar helps these progressive businesses be aware of developments in technology that support their role in enabling the success of their customers.
The exclusive talks curated for the event featured a keynote speech delivered by Chief Scientist at ThoughtWorks Martin Fowler, who is a co-author of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. His talk delved into the decade long evolution of the Radar and its pertinence to technologists. Especially in the current digital-first market, where technologists are at the center of more business decisions than ever before. Since the majority part of the audience was from the field of software, he stressed upon the importance of Continuous Delivery/Continuour Integration [CI/CD] and Agile methodologies to ensure better results from testing phase.
He also spoke about how an agile approach can be used to achieve more out of team meeting or standup meetings. The most interesting part of the presentation was that it was formulated in a simplistic manner so that even people who have minimal understanding about these methodologies can learn from his insightful talk. Since there is no recording of the talk, we recommend to have a look at Martin Fowler’s talk from 2018 where he sheds light on Refactoring that has served as the definitive guide for those passionate about continually improving the design and maintainability of code.
The Tech Radar Summit saw the enthusiastic participation of over 450 software developers, decision-makers and thought leaders from across India. The day was packed with interesting talks by thought leaders and breakout sessions spread across three tracks catering to the audience’s varying tech interests. The Summit also featured an Experience Zone that mobilized Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality to design immersive gaming experiences for the assembled tech practitioners.
Other opinion leaders who took the stage included, Padmanabhan Balasubramanian, MD at Goldman Sachs who discussed the advancement of financial and technical aspects of platform business for engineers. Ranjan Sakalley, CTO at GoPay explored the seven building blocks of reliable systems. Dr.Vivek Raghavan, Chief Project Manager, UIDAI paired with ThoughtWorker Samir Seth on a talk that explored the ways AI can improve the quality of governance.
Sauvik Banerjjee, Technology Leader at Tata Group Digital shared his journey of becoming the CTO. He calls himself an accidental CTO 🙂 The entire talk was very motivating and his passion for technology, entrepreneurship, and cricket was visible from his body language. He was the man behind the technology involved in the e-commerce website TataCLiQ. He also spoke about how techniques used in cricket can be used to solve technological problems. His was the most engaging session in the Technology Radar, a talk that should not be missed! We highly recommend that you have a look at the recording of this talk and jot down the learnings from it.
Commenting on the first edition of India’s Tech Radar Summit, Sudhir Tiwari, Managing Director at ThoughtWorks for India said
Indian businesses are going through a massive transformation as they embrace the digital-first approach. Technologists are now playing a key role in the way business are shaped and remain competitive in the market. Tech strategists are re-orienting their skill set for a new digital landscape – where emerging tech, agile at scale and product thinking define businesses.
To explore earlier editions of the Technology Radar and subscribe to their future editions, click here. You can also follow the updates on Twitter here. What was your biggest learning from ThoughtWorks’s the Technology Radar, do leave them in the comments section…