A business needs a solid vision, goal, and plan for implementing its Corporate and Business Strategies. With the best intentions, this cannot be achieved without a solid roadmap, especially regarding technical projects and initiatives.
So, what is a Technology Roadmap?
A Technology Roadmap aligns your technology initiatives with your business objectives, communicates your strategy to stakeholders, and manages the execution of your projects.
It should cover different domains and decisions, such as:
- Emerging technology: Tracking the evolution and potential impact of emerging technologies relevant to your organisation. It helps you prepare for implementation by laying down the right digital foundations. It also enables you to integrate innovations into your portfolio quickly and scale.
- The technology life cycle management: Tracking current and planned changes to your applications and infrastructure so you can decide where to optimise and rationalise your technology portfolio. It helps you identify and address technical debt, legacy systems, and dependencies.
- Technology implementation: Tracking the delivery of technology initiatives, such as migrating to the cloud, adopting a new platform, or launching a new product. It gives you and your stakeholders an overview of current and planned projects and helps you manage interdependencies, risks, and resources.
A Technology Roadmap is not a detailed project plan or a task list. It is a high-level visual summary that maps out the vision and plans for a complex technology undertaking. It should be clear, concise, and easy to understand by both technical and non-technical audiences.
But why do I need one?
Making any change to your technology environment can be a complicated and risky task. It can also create a ripple effect across your organisation, affecting your operations, processes, customers, and employees.
Implementing a change without thinking through the implications can create problems for your business, such as:
- Poor alignment: If your technology initiatives are not aligned with your business strategy, you could end up investing in the wrong solutions, wasting time and money, and missing out on opportunities.
- Lack of clarity: If your technology strategy is unclear and communicated to your stakeholders, you could avoid confusion, resistance, and misalignment. You could also lose the trust and support of your executives, sponsors, and users.
- Poor execution: If your technology projects are not planned and managed properly, you could encounter delays, errors, bugs, and failures. You could also compromise your technology solutions’ quality, security, and performance.
A Technology Roadmap can help you avoid these pitfalls by enabling you to:
- Align your technology with your business: A roadmap helps you link your technology initiatives with your business objectives and show how they support and enable your strategic goals. It lets you prioritise your investments and focus on the most valuable and impactful solutions.
- Communicate your technology strategy: A roadmap helps you summarise, visualise, and share the strategy with your stakeholders. It lets you explain your technology projects’ why, what, and how and the benefits and outcomes you expect to deliver. It also helps you set expectations and get feedback and buy-in from your stakeholders.
- Manage your technology projects: A roadmap helps you track and monitor the progress and status of your technology project and adjust your plans as needed. It enables you to identify and mitigate risks, issues, and dependencies and allocate and manage your resources. It also helps you measure and report on your results and celebrate your achievements.
OK, so how do I create one?
Creating a technical roadmap based on your business strategy is not a one-time or linear process. It is an iterative and collaborative process that involves research, analysis, planning, communication, and execution.
Here are some steps and best practices to guide you through this process:
Step 1: Identify your strategic objectives
Before you can plan the specific tactics of your proposed technology projects, you need to figure out why you’ve decided this initiative is essential. Your first step is identifying and articulating the “why” behind your proposed changes.
To do this:
- Review your business strategy, vision, mission, and values, and understand your current and desired state, strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and key performance indicators.
- Identify and prioritise your business objectives, such as increasing revenue, reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction, enhancing productivity, or gaining a competitive edge.
- Define and quantify your technology projects’ expected benefits and outcomes, such as improving efficiency, quality, security, scalability, or innovation.
- Align your technology strategy with your business strategy and show how your technology initiatives will support and enable your business objectives.
Step 2: Determine the required future state of your technology architecture
Once you have defined your strategic objectives, you need to plan how to achieve them with your technology solutions. That means your next step is to determine the required future state of your technology architecture, which is the structure and design of your technology environment.
To do this:
- Assess the current state of your technology architecture and identify the gaps, issues, and opportunities for improvement. You can use business capability, application portfolio, or technology landscape maps to visualise your current state.
- Design the future state of your technology architecture and specify the technologies, capabilities, and features you need to implement to achieve your strategic objectives. You can use tools like reference architectures, technology roadmaps, or technology blueprints to visualise your future state.
- Compare your technology architecture’s current and future state and determine the changes, dependencies, and risks involved in moving from one state to another. You can use gap analysis, impact analysis, or risk assessment tools to evaluate your transition.
Step 3: Plan your technology roadmap
After determining the future state of your technology architecture, you need to plan how you will execute your technology projects. That means your next step is to plan your technology roadmap, the document summarising and communicating your technology strategy.
To do this:
- Break down your technology projects into manageable phases, milestones, and deliverables and estimate the required time, cost, and resources. Use work breakdown structures, Gantt charts, or project schedules to plan your project scope.
- Prioritise your technology initiatives based on their value, urgency, feasibility, and alignment with your strategic objectives. Use value proposition canvases, prioritisation matrices, or scoring models to prioritise your project value.
- Sequence your technology initiatives based on their dependencies, risks, and interrelationships. Use dependency maps, network diagrams, or critical path analysis tools to sequence your project order.
- Choose a suitable format and tool to create and present your technology roadmap, such as a timeline, a table, a chart, or a dashboard. Use PowerPoint, Excel, or a platform such as Smartsheet to do this.
Step 4: Communicate and execute your technology roadmap
Once you have planned your technology roadmap, you need to communicate it. That means your final step is to share your technology roadmap with your stakeholders and manage the implementation of your technology solutions.
To do this:
- Identify and engage key stakeholders, such as your executives, sponsors, users, customers, partners, and vendors, and understand their needs, expectations, and feedback. You can use tools such as stakeholder maps, stakeholder analysis, or stakeholder interviews to identify your project stakeholders.
- Communicate your technology roadmap to your stakeholders and explain the vision, goals, plans, benefits and outcomes you expect to deliver from each technology project. You can use tools like presentations, reports, or newsletters to communicate your project message.
- Execute your technology roadmap according to your plan, monitor and control the progress and status of your technology project, and adjust your plan as needed. You can use tools such as project management software, dashboards, or status reports to execute your project plan.
- Measure and report on your results, evaluate the performance and impact of your technology solutions, and the achievement of your strategic objectives. You can measure your project results using metrics, indicators, or surveys.
Great, where do I go from here?
If you’re eager to get started, here are some examples and tools that you can use as inspiration and guidance to help you create your Technology Roadmap:
- How to Build a Technology Roadmap | Steps and Examples – ProductPlan: This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to build a technology roadmap and includes examples of different types of technology roadmaps, such as emerging technology roadmaps, technology life cycle management roadmaps, and technology implementation roadmaps. It also offers a free online tool to create and share your technology roadmap.
- Why and How to Create and Use Technology Roadmaps – Gartner: This article explains why and how to create and use technology roadmaps and provides four best practices to ensure you create and use tech roadmaps effectively to support your business models and drive your goals. It also offers exclusive access to Gartner technology adoption roadmaps curated for emerging technologies and trends.
- Roadmaps – A Complete Guide with Examples, Tools & Tutorials: This website provides a complete guide on roadmaps and covers the basics, types, benefits, and best practices of roadmaps.