FOSS@Porsche · 2025
Technology Radar
In this interview, Patrice Bouillet discusses the journey of the Technology Radar project at Porsche Digital and highlights the role of internal collaboration, the contributions back to the upstream project by AOE Group, a coalition of multiple digital service providers located in Europe, and the enthusiasm of other colleagues in driving this project forward.
Tell us a little more about yourself, your role at Porsche and what topics drive you.
I’m passionate about innovative technologies and creating seamless user
experiences. I’m particularly interested in areas like cloud architecture,
system scalability, and building efficient microservices and micro frontends.
Open source has always resonated with me, and my first significant public
contribution was in the field of an observability tool.
Can you please explain what a Technology Radar is in a nutshell and what benefits it offers?
In simple terms, a Technology Radar is a tool that provides transparency on the
technologies, frameworks, and methodologies used by different teams within an
organization. It helps in achieving alignment among the teams by giving an
overview of the technologies in use, thus ensuring that everyone is on the same
page and promoting efficiency. While it doesn't force any team to adopt specific
technologies, it allows for a collaborative review of what is being utilized and
the benefits it brings.
Think of the Technology Radar as a compass that guides us through the ever-growing complexity of IT software development.
This tool offers numerous benefits for our engineers and IT architects at Porsche Digital:
It fosters a culture where teams are encouraged to experiment with new technologies and methods.
By sharing the knowledge gained internally, our teams can learn from each other's experiences,
helping us stay competitive in the fast-changing IT landscape.
It reduces technical debt and friction between teams by streamlining the technologies we use.
This is essential, as said, for enhancing efficiency and boosting collaboration across different teams.
While the Technology Radar is just a tool, its true value lies in the discussions it sparks among different ARTs and teams. By jointly assessing technologies, we create a shared understanding of the direction we want to evolve in.
You decided to fork the open source Technology Radar project from AOE. What were your reasons for selecting this project over other solutions?
Before I joined Porsche Digital in April this year, there were already some Technology
Radar initiatives in place, primarily using collaborative whiteboards. These
boards offered insights into the technologies teams were using, but they had
limitations. Each team had its perspective, which sometimes resulted in
conflicting categorizations of technologies. This lack of a unified view drove
us to look for a better solution.
While searching for an effective tool, I stumbled upon AOE’s Technology Radar,
which they use to display their technologies. This tool was interactive, detailed, and
not overwhelming, hitting the perfect balance we were looking for. AOE had also
made this Technology Radar available as an open-source framework, which was a perfect
fit for our needs.
Over time, more teams began to adapt this project. Could you share more details about this project?
Initially, the idea was to deploy the Technology Radar just for my Agile Release
Train (ART). However, after discussing with another architect, who had already faced
challenges with their existing system managed through Excel files, it became
clear that there was potential to scale this across other departments. We
collaborated closely to refine and deploy the Technology Radar, making it adaptable
for broader use within Porsche Digital.
Our collaboration led to setting up the Technology Radar in a manner that could be
easily expanded and adapted by other teams. We started by deploying our instance
and then created a public fork of the project, while also contributing back to
the upstream project. This not only helped our internal teams but also
supported the public open-source community.
What did you learn along the way? What were the benefits of this strategy for you, your team and Porsche Digital?
One of the key learnings from this project is the incredible spirit of
collaboration and innovation within Porsche Digital. There was a strong drive to
find solutions that benefit everyone. The enthusiasm and support from colleagues
were instrumental in pushing this project forward.
We now have multiple instances of the Technology Raider running, with at least three
or four different departments adopting it. This tool has become a powerful asset
for us to keep track of technological developments, promote inner-source
initiatives, and contribute back to the open-source community.
Can you give us more insight about the additional features that are provided in the fork?
Sure! In our fork, we have integrated additional features that are specifically tailored to meet our needs at Porsche Digital. We're happy to contribute our modifications back to the upstream project whenever the community shows interest.
For example, we now have the ability to map blips to specific teams, which is important because we have many different teams within our ARTs. This mapping creates an extra layer that encourages teams to work together on common technology.
On the overview page of our Technology Radar, users can now see all of our teams and filter the information based on a specific team. This functionality helps to quickly understand the tech stack, tools, and methodologies that each team is using.
We've added a development mode that allows changes to the Markdown files to be reflected immediately without having to restart the entire build process.
We also implemented a single sign-on (SSO) integration based on EntraID, which simplifies both authentication and authorization for our users. We released this as a plug-and-play solution in a separate open-source repository: @porscheofficial/vercel-static-extensions
With a glimpse into the future: What are your plans regarding FOSS Contributions?
As more departments adopt our Technology Radar, we hope to see increased contributions
and improvements to the upstream project. This shared framework not only
enhances our internal alignment but also prepares us to contribute more
effectively to the open-source community.
The journey of the Technology Radar from an idea to a internally maintained tool
within Porsche Digital is a testament to the power of open-source and
inner-source collaboration. We look forward to continued growth and
contributions to this project.
