Take Better Risks: Figuring Out Where to Place Technology Bets with a Tech Adoption Rubric

Any organization that uses technology comes to a crossroads every so often: one or more members have found a new way to do things, and they'd like to put it to the test on a real project. It could be decoupled Drupal; a different CI/CD service; a host you haven't used in the past; a new front-end framework; etc., etc., etc. They have read the blog posts, watched the intro videos, tried out the demo — and this new tech is going to make our work so much better!

Of course, the organization also has some specific goals, and some limit on resources. Whatever the hoped-for upside, taking time away from those goals and applying those resources to start using new tech constitutes a risk. The new tech might deliver on all its promises, but it might also drain time and resources, then turn out to be a flash in the pan. 

So, how best to:

• apply the best new technology to your work
• keep developers excited and productive
• meet those goals, within those resources?

At ThinkShout, we developed a decision-making process — our "Technology Adoption Rubric" — to help us find and keep balance among these priorities. We'd like to share that with NEDCamp attendees. We also want to share a process for creating your own rubric, customized to your organization's people, tech stack, goals, and resources. Each attendee will come away from the presentation with clear steps for doing this and sharing it with their team. We hope to share with you the benefits we've derived: a stream of actionable tech suggestions from an engaged team, a workable innovation budget, and a tech practice that evolves in a healthy way.