Worth a look
Some links to useful and interesting resources on roadmapping, from the perspectives of industry, government and academia, together with information on related methods. For a short introduction to roadmapping follow this link.
Industry
Garcia & Bray's classic 1997 Sandia Labs 'Fundamentals of technology roadmapping' report is a good starting and reference point.
Dr Gerrit Muller provides the systems perspective, with roadmapping positioned as the prime integrator in the context of high tech innovation, including useful resources.
The long-running International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) has enabled rapid advances in computation and digitisation, illustrating how roadmapping can be used to coordinate activity across a sector (the subject of a 2004 PhD dissertation by Bob Schaller).
Rusnano technology roadmaps provide novel detailed technical examples of how the emergence of technology can be visualised.
A practical 2007 guide to integrated technology roadmapping from ZVEI (German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association).
Government
Industry Canada was a longest running national roadmapping programme that ran until 2008. Roadmaps, process guidance and evaluation framework are useful resources still.
Roadmapping at the sector level in Japan has been ongoing for more than 15 years, coordinated by METI / NEDO, with the the following photograph taken in c2004 demonstrating a level of coherence that is unique to the world.
The long running (since 2003) & successful 'OTR' process and SME support activities from SimTech in Singapore, supporting technology transfer at a national level.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has a strong track record in technology roadmapping in the energy sector, including useful roadmapping guidance.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 2013 background paper on technology roadmaps provides a useful overview in the context of mitigation and adaptation.
United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) 'practice on roadmapping' training course reference material.
The 2013 ISECG (International Space Exploration Coordination Group) Global Exploration Roadmap is a nice example of a roadmap report containing a variety of visual roadmap formats to support the narrative. NASA has produced many interesting roadmaps over the years, including a complete set of technology roadmaps in 2015.
An interesting perspective of roadmapping in the context of complex systems is provided by Dominic Hofstetter, emphasising the danger of treating roadmaps as static convergent plans. However, the criticism that ‘most roadmaps lead straight to the graveyard’ is overly harsh, as the context of their use cannot always be determined from the roadmaps themselves. The visual format of roadmaps should reflect the uncertainty and divergent future where appropriate (for example, using scenarios), and the process of developing and using roadmaps should reflect uncertainty and change, updated as required. A roadmap is not a Gantt chart - more of a combination of an explorers sketch map (‘radar’) and a battle plan (decision making), building confidence and consensus about the direction of travel and next steps.
UK Government Office of Science Futures toolkit, including an Oct 2019 blog on the role of roadmapping.
Academia
For a range of templates and perspectives on strategic technology and innovation management tools and toolkits see the new website from my colleague Dr Clive Kerr.
Academics in various regions of the world with a particular interest in roadmapping research and practice:
Brazil: Prof Maicon Oliveira, of the University of Sao Paolo has a long running practical and research interest in roadmapping, including workshop methods, toolkits and digitalisation of roadmapping.
Germany: Prof Martin Möhrle, of the University of Bremen, with research interests relating to technology and innovation management, and practical methods such as TRIZ and roadmapping (including editing several volumes of papers).
Germany: Dr Sven Schimpf, Managing Director of the Fraunhofer Group for Innovation Research, based at the IAO Fraunhofer in Stuttgart, has considerable practical experience and research interests in roadmapping, including practice and software surveys.
Japan: Prof Yusuke Kishita, of the University of Tokyo has particular expertise in roadmapping design for sustainable futures.
Japan: Prof Kunio Shirahada, of the the Japan Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (JAIST), with particular interests in technology management of services and technology.
Japan: Dr Yuta Hirose, with links to the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology (AIIT) in Tokyo and Institute for Manufacturing (University of Cambridge), with interests in technology venturing and engineering design applied to strategic technology and innovation management.
Korea: Prof Sungjoo Lee, of Seoul National University, with interests in technology management and analytics.
The Netherlands: Dr Elke den Ouden, of the Technical University of Eindhoven, with research interests in design and innovation.
The Netherlands: Prof Leanne Simonse, of Delft Technical University, with research interests in design thinking, and a book on ‘design roadmapping’ published in 2018.
Norway: Prof Gerrit Muller, of University College of Southeast Norway, with useful roadmapping resources available on his ‘Gaudi’ systems architecting website.
Russia: Prof Konstantin Vishnevskiy and Dr Ozcan Saritas, Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, are leading proponents of the ‘Moscow School’ of roadmapping.
Thailand: Prof Nathasit Gerdsri, of Mahidol University in Bangkok, with particular expertise in implementation of technology roadmapping.
UK: Dr Rob Phaal and Dr Clive Kerr, of the University of Cambridge, focusing on practical tools and toolkits for strategic technology and innovation management,
USA: Prof Tugrul Daim, of Portland State University (OR), focusing on engineering and technology management, with many papers and an edited collection of roadmapping perspectives published.
USA: Prof Olivier de Weck, at MIT, focusing on roadmapping in the context of engineering systems, with an interesting wiki resource developing from student roadmapping projects, and professional education programmes.
Search for 'technologie-roadmapping' to find interesting perspectives from Germany, including masters and doctoral dissertations - for example, this one from Dr Thomas Abele.
Related methods
Design-driven roadmapping process developed at UC Berkeley, with another design-oriented perspective now available in a 2018 book from Prof Lianne Simonse, TU Delft.
Human-centred design roadmapping approach in IDEO's human-centred Design Kit.
Beyond the roadmapping workshop templates are available on this website, many other resources are available online, such as: 1) Agile product development templates; and 2) Design thinking templates.
Strategy is critically dependent on a good understanding of the trends and drivers in the external business and wider environment. However, the quality of information is often poor, and not enough attention is given to understanding the nature and impact of these forces. Arup's 'drivers of change' cards provide a useful resource in this regard.
TRIZ is an interesting structured approach for creative problem solving originating in Russia, and its integration with roadmapping has been explored by Imoh Ilevbare.
A great compendium of tools and resource links from the OECDF Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI).
Methods from agile software development are being extended to strategy and other domains, although deployment in hardware environments can be challenging without careful translation to context. Software roadmaps are often rather short term, given the pace of software innovation, focussing on the prime integrator - product release schedules and associated feature sets. The multi-layered systems approaches common in hardware product development and strategy tend to take a longer term view, with platform strategies used to synchronise technologies with differing clock speeds.
'Lean innovation' approaches, common in Scandinavia, emerged from production quality systems, and provide an alternative starting point for agile deployments, with both agile and lean sharing some commonalities in terms of visual management. This 'self-facilitating' template was tested for application in a lean innovation 'pulse room'. An example of agile concepts applied to roadmapping are described here, and an interesting experiment in deploying agile methods for roadmapping in a complex digital environment (government services) is summarised here. An 'agile' workshop template has been designed to support product-service strategy, focusing on the minimum viable product and subsequent releases.
If you have any queries regarding research, training, collaboration or other support please contact me at rob.phaal@eng.cam.ac.uk.