The Phase2 Innovation Radar

Digital production in the 21st century involves building via the integration of platforms and products as much as developing bespoke solutions. Organizations are hungry for strong guidance on approaches that will propel their businesses and a failure to focus on a company’s existing digital ecosystem is both shortsighted and irresponsible. 

As an agency CTO, I believe it is our industry’s responsibility to always pursue matching technologies to the needs of an organization. 

Have you taken a peek at the Martech Landscape Supergraphic lately? More commonly known as the Martech 5000, in reality, there are over 8,000 products and it continues to grow. The sheer depth and breadth of this ecosystem is far too great for any one person to capably grasp. Likewise, in the digital product agency world, with siloed knowledge and staff expansion and contraction, it can be difficult to catalog knowledge. We need systems to help us organize and manage “what we know.” 

Inspired by the ThoughtWorks Technology Radar, the Phase2 Innovation Radar is our tool for organizing research and experiential knowledge. This tool has proven vital in tracking the rapidly evolving facets of today’s digital experience platforms. It also allows us to orient our teams around preferred approaches and drive professional development at the individual and practice levels.

What is the Innovation Radar and what does it look like?

The Radar tracks technologies, products, processes, and techniques. Each of these elements represents a blip. Each blip falls under one or more categories used to identify a potential digital solution. Some of the categories tracked on the Radar include content, CRM, personalization, marketing automation, and data compliance. Blip Radar designations help identify our level of commitment to a particular blip.

Research Designations

• Invest: These blips can be category leaders; we want to invest time to develop expertise in the space
• Pilot: This includes up and coming tech products; great potential but must be tested and evaluated to determine investment
• Assess: Brand new explorations; often, this involves a comparison of blips (pros/cons) or ways to develop our POV
• Monitor: Previously assessed blips; often the assessment fell short of our expectations, but as features evolve, this blip may become more attractive for investment
• Divest: We’ve decided to move away from this blip; most often happens when there is a better option within a category

The Assess and Pilot designations are the foundation of the Radar. For each blip within these designations, we capture in writing, our learnings.

Assessment write-ups are designed to be quick and easy. The assessment captures why and how the blip is useful and how it could fit into our process.  We document pricing and licensing information and useful documentation, reviews, blogs, tutorials, and training.

Pilot write-ups are for any blip that we used either on a client project, internal project, or as a proof of concept. This real-life usage provides incredibly valuable knowledge on when and where a particular blip is useful and how it may evolve client work. The Pilot write-up also highlights pros and cons and next step recommendations.

Additionally, we track which clients or projects have used a blip and which team members have direct experience. This knowledge is then shared across our teams, deepening cross-functional expertise.  

This may seem like quite a lot of information to document, but each of these write-ups is designed to be easy to accomplish, facilitated by quick forms and templates. The main benefit of this structured data collection is the ability to easily evaluate multiple options against each other.  We house write-ups on our wiki with metadata to facilitate searching, filtering, and browsing.

The Innovation Radar is an organic and continually evolving tool and repository.  Twice annually, we review every item with an eye towards trimming the fat, filling in gaps, and reevaluating our categories.

The Innovation Radar is an important knowledge-preserving product for Phase2 and our clients. We release an annual update every March. If you’re interested in learning more about how the Radar can inform your organization’s digital strategy, please reach out via LinkedIn. Subscribe below for regular news and insights.