Research note · Technology roadmapping · method guide
Technology roadmapping: from market need to capability choice
A practical explanation of technology roadmapping, T-Plan and the relationships between market drivers, products, technologies, capabilities and investment choices.
What is technology roadmapping?
Technology roadmapping is a structured approach for aligning technology development and acquisition with product, service and business needs over time. A technology roadmap should therefore show more than the expected maturity of technologies. It should explain why they matter, what they enable and when decisions or capabilities are needed. [1]
The approach is flexible. It can support a product family, a business unit, an emerging technology, a sector or a public mission. The architecture changes with the purpose, but the recurring value lies in connecting commercial and technical perspectives. [3]
What the IfM T-Plan process connects
The Institute for Manufacturing developed T-Plan as a fast-start process for technology and product roadmapping. Its core workshops examine market and business drivers, product features and performance, technology solutions and the chart that connects those perspectives. [2]
This sequence prevents a common failure: starting with a favourite technology and searching for a justification afterwards. It also prevents the opposite failure of considering only current customer requests and overlooking technical possibilities that could create new value.
- Market and business drivers: why might change be needed?
- Product, service or system attributes: what response creates value?
- Technology and capability: how can the response become possible?
- Programmes and resources: what must be done, by whom and when?
Balance market pull and technology push
Roadmapping is not a one-way cascade from market request to technical task. Technology can create options that customers cannot yet articulate, while market and regulatory shifts can change which technical performance matters. The roadmap gives both directions a common structure.
The discipline is to state the relationship rather than merely placing items in adjacent rows. If a technology is said to enable a product capability, participants should be able to explain the mechanism, timing, evidence and important uncertainty behind that link.
Use the roadmap to make technology choices
A useful technology roadmap supports decisions such as develop, acquire, partner, license, monitor or stop. Those choices depend on strategic importance, maturity, differentiation, intellectual property, capability, timing and resource constraints.
The roadmap helps make common dependencies visible. Several products may need the same data platform, material capability or test facility. Treating each product plan independently can duplicate investment or create impossible demand for the same specialists.
Treat the technology roadmap as a living strategic system
Research reviewing two decades of technology and strategic roadmapping shows how widely the method has developed across firms, sectors and national contexts. That breadth is a strength, but it also means the method should be configured for the decision rather than copied as one universal template. [4]
Technology readiness, market evidence, costs and organisational priorities change. Ownership, review triggers, reasons for change and links to the portfolio are therefore part of the technology roadmapping process, not administrative additions after the chart is complete.
References
- [1]Phaal, R., Farrukh, C.J.P. and Probert, D.R. (2004). Technology roadmapping - A planning framework for evolution and revolution. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 71(1–2), 5–26. Source ↗
- [2]Phaal, R., Farrukh, C.J.P. and Probert, D.R. (2001). T-Plan: The fast start to Technology Roadmapping - planning your route to success. Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge. Source ↗
- [3]Phaal, R. and Muller, G. (2009). An architectural framework for roadmapping: Towards visual strategy. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 76(1), 39–49. Source ↗
- [4]Park, H., Phaal, R., Ho, J.-Y. and O’Sullivan, E. (2020). Twenty years of technology and strategic roadmapping research: A school of thought perspective. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 154, 119965. Source ↗