Technology roadmapping—A planning framework for evolution and revolution

Technology roadmapping is a flexible technique that is widely used within industry to support strategic and long-range planning. The approach provides a structured (and often graphical) means for exploring and communicating the relationships between evolving and developing markets, products and technologies over time. It is proposed that the roadmapping technique can help companies survive in turbulent environments by providing a focus for scanning the environment and a means of tracking the performance of individual, including potentially disruptive, technologies. Technology roadmaps are deceptively simple in terms of format, but their development poses significant challenges. In particular the scope is generally broad, covering a number of complex conceptual and human interactions. This paper provides an overview of the origins of technology roadmapping, by means of a brief review of the technology and knowledge management foundations of the technique in the context of the fields of technology strategy and technology transitions. The rapidly increasing literature on roadmapping itself is presented in terms of a taxonomy for classifying roadmaps, in terms of both organizational purpose and graphical format. This illustrates the flexibility of the approach but highlights a key gap—a robust process for technology roadmapping. A fast-start method for technology roadmapping developed by the authors is introduced and described. Developed in collaboration with industry, this method provides a means for improved understanding of the architecture of roadmaps and for rapidly initiating roadmapping in a variety of organizational contexts. This paper considers the use of the roadmaps from two main perspectives. The first is a company perspective: roadmaps that allow technology developments to be integrated with business planning, and the impact of new technologies and market developments to be assessed. The second perspective is multiorganizational: roadmaps that seek to capture the environmental landscape, threats and opportunities for a particular group of stakeholders in a technology or application area. Two short 0040-1625/$ – see front matter D 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0040-1625(03)00072-6 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Phaal). R. Phaal et al. / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 71 (2004) 5–26 6 illustrative cases show the fast-start method in use in the context of disruptive technological trends from these two perspectives. D 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.