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Starting-up roadmapping fast: a company-specific process for the rapid initiation of roadmapping encourages learning and staff involvement, and identifies key issues, knowledge gaps and actions.

Article Excerpt
Technology roadmapping is a powerful technique for supporting technology management and planning in the firm. Although roadmaps can take various forms (1-6), the most common approach is encapsulated in the generic type proposed by EIRMA (6). The generic roadmap is a time-based chart, comprising a number of layers that typically include both commercial and technological perspectives (Figure 1). The roadmap enables the evolution of markets, products and technologies to be explored, together with the linkages between the various perspectives.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

A recent survey of 2,000 manufacturing firms in the United Kingdom indicates that about 10 percent of companies (mostly large) have applied the technology roadmapping approach, with approximately 89 percent of those companies using the technique more than once, or on an ongoing basis. However, application of the roadmapping approach presents considerable challenges to firms, because the roadmap itself, while fairly simple in structure and concept, represents the final distilled outputs from a strategy and planning process. Key challenges reported by survey respondents included keeping the roadmapping process "alive" on an ongoing basis (50 percent), starting up the process (30 percent) and developing a robust method (20 percent).

This article describes a process called T-Plan, which has been developed to support the rapid initiation of roadmapping and thereby address these challenges (7).

T-Plan Fast-Start Process

The aims of the T-Plan process are to:

* Support the start-up of company-specific roadmapping processes.

* Establish key linkages between technology resources and business drivers.

* Identify important gaps in market, product and technology intelligence.

* Develop a "first-cut" technology roadmap.

* Support technology strategy and planning initiatives in the firm.

* Support communication between technical and commercial functions.

The "standard" process aims to support product planning and is based on four facilitated workshop (see Figure 2). The process is flexible in terms of time, resources and focus, and the workshops can be modified, extended or compressed depending on the intended purpose, available information and the unit of analysis. The main elements of the process are summarized in the following sections, illustrated with examples from an application in Domino Printing Sciences plc.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Several factors should be considered prior to initiation of the roadmapping workshops, including:

* The unit of analysis (scope and focus).

* Clear articulation of company objectives for the process.

* Appropriate participants.

* Information required to support the process.

* Required resources and scheduling of workshops.

Workshop participants should include both technical and commercial functions (such as research, development, manufacturing, marketing, finance, and human resources). Continuity of participation is desirable, at least for a core group of participants. Establishing the objectives for the process is important as a means for judging success, together with ensuring that the focus of the process is appropriate. Coordination is a key element of the T-Plan approach, with the need to ensure that the process is continually aligned with company...