Technical Review

A technology is a package of tools, ideas and strategies wrapped up in a discrete, named, manageable package. A technical review is simply a list of all the technologies a project is going to need with some information about each.  This can include technologies that do not yet exist which will have to be created for the project.  

At first glance such a review might seem like a bit of a detail but it is a common mistake, during project planning, to just list what needs doing and who is going to do it and leave it at that. Doing a technical review is a way of making explicit what might otherwise be left buried in various assumptions scattered through the project plan.   One problem for a project manager is that technical people have a tendency to

a) re-invent the wheel
b) blithely assume that everything can be done somehow.
c) use technologies which are 'interesting' or new purely for that reason

Detail

For each technology the following things should be listed:-

Name
What experience currently exists in the team with this technology?
What experience currently exists in the organization with this technology?
What equipment will have to be bought to facilitate this technology?
If there is insufficient skills or experience with the technology how will this be dealt with and at what cost?
Next best alternative and why this was rejected.

Technologies should be identified not just at the core of the project but on the periphery also.  For example technologies used for project management,  research prototyping etc...

Benefits

The things that can be gained from a technical review are

Information about what training is needed.
Information about costs associated with technology related hardware.
Cross check on how project tasks are to be accomplished.
Identification of new technologies that are going to have to be invented.
A check that team members are not going to be developing a technology when one can be bought off the shelf.

Challenge

It is difficult for non technical people to challenge technical people.  A technical review requires technical people to put a name to how things are going to be done or declare that they are effectively going to invent a technology themselves.

It is OK to invent a technology but it is a risky business and this has got to be acknowledged in the plan.

Once technologies have been named, non technologists can go away and learn about them, at least to a superficial degree.  They can find the name of alternatives and demand reasons why one has been chosen over another.

Team Technology Match

The team can be reviewed to see what skills and experience exist in the team with the proposed technologies. 

It might very well turn out that there is very little experience with a proposed technology but lots of experience with some other alternative.  Or it might be that some training has to be built into the plan.