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Technology Scouting Brief

An actionable, repeatable scouting brief to capture technology hypotheses, evidence, business relevance, maturity, integration needs, risks, and a recommended low-risk pilot with measurable success signals.

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Technology Scouting Brief

This brief captures a new technology hypothesis, why it matters to the business, technical maturity, integration considerations, risks, and a recommended low-risk pilot approach. Aim for concise, evidence-backed answers. Where evidence is limited, explicitly list assumptions and the next experiments you would run.

Use this form to create comparable submissions for portfolio review and prioritization. Try to state measurable success signals and the minimal experiment that would validate the claim.

Clear, short name (vendor, project, or descriptive name).
What does the technology claim to do? Keep to one or two sentences.
Brief description of how it works and its scope.
Links to papers, demos, vendor docs, benchmarks, prototypes or screenshots. Note version/date.
How it could create value, reduce waste, improve experience, or open new services. Tie to metrics where possible (e.g., reduce cycle time by X%, increase yield, reduce cost per unit by Y).
Which customers, roles, or internal processes would change? Describe current pain points and the expected improvement.
Estimate the maturity of the technology implementation.
How confident are you in this maturity estimate?
1.0 10.0
Systems, data sources, APIs, hardware, or vendors that must be integrated or procured.
Personal data, safety risks, regulatory requirements, or governance needs. Call out high-risk items and suggested controls.
Operational, technical, vendor, security, business or regulatory risks and proposed mitigations.
Choose an appropriate way to test the technology with minimal exposure.
Describe the minimal experiment, duration, sample size (if relevant), metrics to measure, and clear success criteria (numeric where possible). Example: reduce error rate from X to Y over N weeks.
Rough internal effort needed to run the pilot.
Vendor costs, infra, licensing, or procurement estimates (provide low/likely/high if possible).
Estimated duration for the pilot.
Person responsible for the brief and pilot.
Team that will sponsor or run the pilot.
How urgently should the organization act? Provide reasoning in notes if needed.
Recommended outcome for a portfolio review.
Unstated assumptions, required approvals, suggested next experiments, or known blockers.
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