Strategic Technology Roadmapping

A typical roadmap has a market or commercial layer (the why - drivers and needs), a product or service layer (the what - offerings that meet those needs), and a technology layer (the how - the technologies and resources that enable the offerings), all plotted against time. Phaal, Farrukh, and Probert describe roadmapping as a flexible framework, so the exact layers are tailored to purpose. The connections between layers are the point: reading top to bottom gives the causal logic from need to technology, and reading across time shows when each element must be ready.

Roadmapping is a structuring and communication framework, not a forecasting method; it arranges projections about markets and technologies on a timeline but does not generate them. In uncertain environments it is best preceded or combined with foresight techniques - scenario planning to bound the range of futures, Delphi to forecast technology timing, and cross-impact analysis to handle interdependencies - whose outputs become the inputs the roadmap aligns. Used this way, roadmapping turns separate foresight results into an integrated, actionable plan with explicit dependencies and timing.

Phaal, Farrukh, and Probert deliberately framed roadmapping as a planning framework for both 'evolution and revolution.' The same layered, time-based architecture can chart the steady improvement of a product line or map a disruptive leap to a new technology platform, and the paper notes it can be used to track the performance and maturity of individual, potentially disruptive technologies. The key is to tailor the architecture and horizon to the strategic question and to treat the roadmap as a living document, revising it as disruptive technologies advance.