Integrating technology roadmapping and portfolio management at the front-end of new product development

Article history: Received 12 November 2009 Received in revised form 9 July 2010 Accepted 14 July 2010 Many authors point out that the front-end of new product development (NPD) is a critical success factor in the NPD process and that numerous companies face difficulties in carrying it out appropriately. Therefore, it is important to develop new theories and proposals that support the effective implementation of this earliest phase of NPD. This paper presents a newmethod to support the development of front-end activities based on integrating technology roadmapping (TRM) and project portfolio management (PPM). This newmethod, called the ITP Method, was implemented at a small Brazilian high-tech company in the nanotechnology industry to explore the integration proposal. The case study demonstrated that the ITP Method provides a systematic procedure for the fuzzy front-end and integrates innovation perspectives into a single roadmap, which allows for a better alignment of business efforts and communication of product innovation goals. Furthermore, the results indicated that themethodmay also improve quality, functional integration and strategy alignment. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.