Data-Driven Roadmapping (DDRM): Approach and Case Demonstration

Under the rapidly changing business environment and emergence of breakthrough technologies, keeping a roadmap alive appears to be a major challenge for many organizations. This is due to the fact that a roadmap itself reflects only a snapshot of an organization's strategic plan based on the information at the point when a roadmap is developed. It is crucial for an organization to monitor changes in its business environment which may exert different effects on a roadmap and assess whether such changes are sufficiently relevant and significant. If so, then an updated version of a roadmap will be required. According to current practice, the roadmap meeting is scheduled periodically to review and keep the roadmap it up-to-date. However, this approach may not be sufficiently proactive in monitoring the status of a roadmap and allowing the management to make a timely decision on its revision. This article explores the conceptual approach called data-driven roadmapping using a data-driven computerized decision support system that can be semiautomated to reflect any changes in the business environment, providing recommendations as to whether a roadmap needs to be slightly adjusted, totally revised, or remain unchanged.