Technology roadmapping: An evaluation

The rapid pace of market, competitive, and technological change is increasingly creating pressure on today's large industrial firms to react quickly. Management processes, such as technology roadmapping, are frequently used by managers in these firms to effectively respond to those changes. Technology roadmapping links an extended view of the technological future with current decisions about the organization and its investments. This study provides an organizational perspective on roadmapping as currently practiced, presenting the experience some large, decentralized firms that have implemented it, and evaluating the results.;This is a case-based, qualitative, exploratory study with several broad goals, which are: (1) to better understand what roadmapping is by characterizing the process and its tangible output, (2) to recognize the effects of roadmapping on the organization, and conversely, the organization's influence on roadmapping, (3) to identify the appropriate circumstances for using the process, (4) to specify how one would know if it was being done well, and (5) to explore the theoretically interesting and practically useful features of roadmapping. I establish an evaluation framework and employ a case comparative methodology using fuzzy set analysis to answer these and some more specific questions about the process. I also demonstrate a unique and productive model of research collaboration between academic researchers and business practitioners that was employed.;Several practical results dealt with the creation and use of roadmaps, as well as the roadmap documents. The influence of roadmapping motive on its practice was explored. Here, an individual-level psychological theory, prospect theory, appeared to also operate at the group level. In the ten cases examined, the presence of external threats corresponded with improved process adoption and decision making use. However, a new "water cooler" model of roadmapping questioned whether roadmapping would be effective if only exercised in threatening situations. The notion of "compelling roadmaps" was introduced and defined, suggesting that such roadmaps are more persuasive and influence individual decision making, thereby aligning the organization. Other results deal with roadmapping implementation, overcoming the linear tendencies of roadmaps, and measures for the process and the implementing organization.