A technology roadmap is a document that describes how evolving customer requirements can be connected with new means of satisfying them, into the future.

A technology roadmap takes a long range view of how the future of an industry or market is likely to unfold for a period of ten to twenty or even up to forty years.

A useful technology roadmap creates a scenario by weaving together stories from at least three paradigms:

• major changes or shifts impacting the sector
• the emergence of new technologies
• how unserved or underserved customer needs are likely to evolve.

Each paradigm impacts on the others as it evolves to create an integrated future.

The best technology roadmaps define performance benchmarks that describe successive advancements in performance, from the customer perspective, and identify where gaps in capability (or challenges that need to be addressed) exist in reaching defined future requirements.

These ‘innovation stretch objectives’ provide the impetus for organisations to create projects and strive to advance to new levels of performance.

The most valuable aspect of technology roadmapping is not the published document. It is the learning and relationships which develop as a result of the ‘creative tensions’ which are shaped during the conversations that create the technology roadmap.

The learning that is given and received during roadmapping processes provides exceptional opportunities for innovation leadership to emerge, thus catalysing complementary capabilities and new combinations capable of delivering exceptional and often unexpected results.

With the emergence of open innovation, the design of who actively participates in the conversations determines the quality of the insights and initiatives that emerge from the technology roadmapping process.