Twenty Technology Questions

These are twenty (-ish) high-level questions I suggest are useful to ask whenever considering application of a technology to a problem.?It’s not an exhaustive list – there are loads more. The ones listed are seeds to whole chains of additional thought.?But it's good, I'd suggest, not to leave these ones out.?

The answers to these questions don’t dictate one particular option on what to do – that’s up to us, our organisation, and our partners.? They just colour, inform, our own choices. If we are a multi-billionaire and we want to spend money on an unproven frontier technology that is politically, technically, and socially difficult, then hey, within the local law and planning regulations, no-one will stop us trying. ?That’s our call. ?If we are in that enviable situation there are undoubtedly more degrees of freedom. If not, there is more need to bring others along with us, and they will typically want to know answers to most if not all of these questions.

Whoever we are, it is good to make our decision on technology spend as informed as possible.?These are some starter questions to help inform ourselves.?Things to think about.?Some of them are linked questions, in groups, and so that’s what the different fonts are about.

1. Is it an [older] tried and tested technology?

2. Does it still work perfectly adequately, commercially in some locations?

a.??????What differentiates locations that work from ones that don’t?

3. If it has been working fine so far, what are the drivers for change??E.g.:

a.??????Is its competition overtaking it and if so, why?

b.??????Are there raw material longevity constraints?

c.??????Are there increasing environmental issues?

d.??????Is it purely sentiment driven – i.e. fashion?

4. Is it a well-known technology, but hasn’t been widely deployed in a certain application?

5. Why would that new application be commercially competitive now?

6. If not commercially competitive yet, what would have to change for that to be so?

7. Is it a new technology – but mostly an incremental improvement?

8. What aspects of any new elements might be vulnerable to failure, including development timescales?

9. How many case studies are currently available and what are their commercial maturity?

10. How does the new technology address parallel improvements from the competition?

11. Is it a new, frontier technology?

12. Have demo-projects illustrated technical feasibility yet??How many?

13. If technical feasibility is not apparent yet, what are the hold ups?

a.??????Is progress being made? On what timescale?

14. What are the barriers to commercial deployment??

a.??????How many things have to come together for it to work - do we know?

15. How does removal of those barriers also remove barriers for the competition?

16. Even if it works technically and commercially are social issues a big problem?

17. Are the social objections based on accurate perceptions of a problem?

18. Are routes to rectify any misconceptions clear/likely to succeed?

19. Even if it works technically and commercially are political issues a big problem?

20. How likely are they to override any technical and commercial merits?

Different organisations will have different tolerances to all the different permutations of answers that these questions can provide, and that’s as it should be.?Vive la difference!?Always though, we should have a bit of an idea in our own head as to which answers we and our organisations can tolerate, and which ones shout “walkaway”.??