3 Models of
Technology Roadmaps
By the Research and Development Research Team
Introduction
Technology roadmaps help R&D organizations secure stakeholder alignment on key
technologies, identify capability gaps and prioritize technology investments. R&D
leaders can use this research to understand the main factors that shape and differentiate
technology roadmap models.
Overview
Technology roadmaps help R&D leaders assess capability gaps and develop
technologies to support growth opportunities. Given the rate of technological
change, R&D leaders should use roadmapping to help identify competencies that
will fuel competitive differentiation for the organization’s future products and services.
Translating technology strategy into roadmapping is a challenging exercise; most
companies can benefit from reflecting on their roadmapping goals and elevating
the maturity and impact of their technology roadmapping activities to maximize
their impact.
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Key Findings
• T
he goal of technology roadmapping should be based on use case and applicability,
such as a portfolio resource allocation tool, a product development plan or a strategic
document to communicate technology investments.
• The time horizon for the average company’s technology roadmap is approximately
2 to 2.5 times that company’s average product development life cycle.
• To decide the scope of roadmaps, teams must consider the trade-off between how
the roadmap is organized (i.e., by business unit [BU], product line or platform) and the
depth or detail that the roadmap will be able to communicate given that choice.
• The process and inputs to build technology roadmaps will depend on the degree to
which the company’s R&D strategy is technology oriented or market oriented. For
example, a company planning technology investments to support product launches
will likely build a very market-oriented roadmap.
• In instances of enterprisewide roadmap analyses, companies often create
multiple versions of the same roadmap at different altitudes designed for diverse
stakeholder groups.
Technology roadmaps are visual frameworks that depict technology goals and the
corresponding competencies required to achieve those goals. At their core, technology
roadmaps are powerful tools for ensuring organizational alignment on the key
technologies that will enable new products and platforms moving forward. R&D leaders
often rely on roadmaps to execute their long-term technology strategy, make tactical
portfolio decisions, and conduct capacity and capability planning.
Increasingly, R&D leaders are reporting technology roadmapping as one of their top
three priorities.1 Key factors driving this increased focus on roadmapping are:
• Continued fear of disruption in established industries
• Accelerating pace of new technology introduction
• Perception that data can provide better, more granular insight into where innovation
opportunities sit
• Desire to track trends more consistently as new businesses scale rapidly and demand
changes quickly
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Key Factors to Determine
Roadmap Model
Roadmapping Goal
There is no single model that all companies should use to build a roadmap; rather, R&D
leaders should spend time upfront considering specific goals they hope to achieve
through roadmapping. This reflection will shape the model the companies should select
(i.e., technology push, market pull or hybrid), which then determines the process, visual
and contributors (or team members) needed to build the roadmap.
Goals should be based on how the organization intends to use the roadmap (see Figure
1). The altitude of information to be captured and the audience will influence the use
case. For example, a technology roadmap needs to be strategic and high level if the goal
is to communicate technology investments to executive leadership. The roadmap will
need to be tactical or granular if it’s going to be used as a planning document linked to
project plans or portfolio decisions.
Some companies have multiple goals for their roadmap, and hence, they create multiple
visuals from the same analyses with different altitudes and level of detail appropriate for
various audiences.
Figure 1. Objectives of Creating Technology Roadmaps
High Level
A document that communicates technology strategy
“Vision Document” throughout the organization and maps long-term
implications for technology development
A framework charting future technological goals and
“Strategic Framework” the corresponding competencies required to achieve
an “end state”
A plan to develop specific iterations for existing
“Tactical Product Plan”
products and to help meet near-term revenue targets
A tool that integrates all aspects of long- and short-term
“Portfolio Prioritization
portfolio management activities to optimize resource
Tool”
allocation across the firm
Tactical
Source: Gartner
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Scope
Scope refers to how a roadmap is organized, that is, at corporate level or by BU, product
lines or technology platforms. The choice of scope impacts the roadmap model to be
built and the level or depth of information covered in it.
Market-oriented roadmaps are typically organized by BUs or product lines, whereas
technology-oriented roadmaps are organized by platforms. Roadmaps that cut across
the organization should be scoped more narrowly (e.g., a single capability, business
process or technology) to make them more feasible to create and less complex to
depict. Whereas a roadmap designed to plan all technology investments related to a
certain product can include a detailed analysis of technology projects, customer needs,
product features and so forth.
The trade-off between depth and breadth should be considered while finalizing the
scope to ensure it doesn’t impact the ability to represent data meaningfully.
Our benchmarks show that most companies choose to scope their roadmaps around
technology platforms or product categories (see Figure 2). Companies rarely create
detailed enterprisewide roadmaps as the sheer volume of information makes it difficult
to visualize and organize.
Figure 2. Scope of Technology Roadmaps
36%
6%
Technology
Corporatewide
Platform Roadmaps
Roadmaps
36% 22%
Product Category BU Roadmaps
Roadmaps
n = 58
Source: Gartner
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Time Horizon:
Companies most commonly build roadmaps that look out five to 10 years (see Figure 3),
but a good rule of thumb to determine an appropriate time horizon is to multiply
the average new product development cycle time by 2 to 2.5x.
When selecting the appropriate time horizon, it’s important to note that this choice will
impact the granularity of analysis included. Roadmaps that look out more than three to
five years will comprise detailed near-term analysis with a higher-level strategy outlined
in the roadmap’s later years. For example, a market-oriented roadmap looking out seven
years will likely have thorough market analyses for Years 1 to 5 but a less detailed view of
product strategy beyond that.
Tracking the rate of adoption or impact of trends in an industry can help determine
appropriate timelines for the technology roadmap. One caution: While many companies
want to build roadmaps longer than 10 years, that analysis is often useful only for a very
high-level technology-push strategy as there will be little to no product roadmap that far
into the future.
Figure 3. Time Horizon of Technology Roadmaps
19% 33%
10+ Years 3 to 5 Years
48%
5 to 10 years
n = 25
Source: Gartner
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Models of Technology Roadmaps
There are three common models of technology roadmapping that R&D organizations
tend to use, namely market pull, technology push and hybrid. Table 1 outlines when
these models are best applied.
Table 1. Comparative Analysis of Technology Roadmap Models
Market Pull Technology Push Hybrid
Objective How can technology support How can technology create new How can technology support product
business goals? market opportunities? roadmaps and create new growth
opportunities?
Select If • Plan technology investments • Create a long-term vision for • Articulate R&D support for nearterm
You Need required to support product R&D. product needs and long-term technology
To: roadmaps or launch plans. • Identify organization-wide opportunities.
• Respond to market shifts platform or capability • Emphasize centralized technology
• Optimize capability development. investments with enterprisewide impact.
allocation for portfolio • Prioritize competencies for • Encourage longer-term planning and
management. strategic advantage or future vision setting.
• Support decentralized R&D differentiation.
planning. • Outline a partnership or
acquisition strategy for emerging
technologies.
Key • Product roadmap, plan or • Technology trends and • Same as market pull and technology push
Input(s) strategy competencies
• Business and consumer • Growth opportunities from
trends differentiated technical
• Prioritized list of customer competencies
needs and product
attributes
Features • Aligns technology to • Encourages longer-term thinking • Assists in resource planning and strategic
business needs or product • Assists in transformational innovation
strategy ideation • Useful communication tool to highlight
• Assists in resourcing • Enables strategic workforce technology-push opportunities or needs
decisions planning with business partners
• Identifies centralized technology • Highlights critical technology investments
investment opportunities for growth
Drawbacks • Difficult to diagnose longer- • Time intensive • Tendency to overemphasize the product
term capability gaps as • Difficult to get buy-in on support components can result in a
product plans tend to only technology ideas not explicitly market-pull roadmap
be detailed in the short term linked to product plans • Requires extensive collaboration between
• Can miss blind spots in the • Challenging to identify longer- multiple stakeholders
product strategy term product applications • Requires extensive, and often
• Difficult to plan cross- or technology-based growth enterprisewide, data collection and
product technology opportunities analysis
investments • Challenging to organize data in one visual
Time 3 to 5 years 5+ years 5+ years
Horizon
Scope Product categories, BUs or Technology platforms or areas Technology platforms and product lines
regions
Owners Technology and marketing, Technology Technology and marketing, product
product managers or general managers or general managers
managers
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Overview of Roadmap
1
Models
Market-Pull Roadmaps
A market-pull roadmap depicts technology competencies required to support product
roadmaps or launch plans. These roadmaps are most effective for communicating how
technologies support business objectives and, consequently, help teams in prioritizing
technology project goals based on business partner needs.
Companies typically use product needs (i.e., features, attributes and specifications)
outlined in product roadmaps as a starting point to diagnose capability gaps and
emerging technology needs. In the absence of a detailed product strategy, R&D should
work with business partners to understand their assumptions about future customer
needs and help them articulate the critical product attributes required to fulfill these
needs.Roadmapping teams can also identify future customer needs by analyzing
market and industry trends impacting the business in the roadmap time horizon.
Market-pull roadmaps tend to have shorter time horizons, three to five years on
average, and are most often scoped to support a specific business or product category.
Given their product orientation, market-pull roadmaps require R&D teams to closely
collaborate with their marketing and business stakeholders during the scoping and
analysis phases.
While market-pull roadmaps are effective for clarifying specific technologies needed to
support product plans, they do have a few drawbacks. For example, they often become
quite tactical and struggle to push the organization to think beyond near-term, well-
defined product needs. If the company needs to generate a fresh new vision for the
technology organization, market-pull roadmaps may not be the appropriate model to
select. In addition, it is difficult to identify cross-BU or cross-product opportunities since
the analysis tends to be reflected in separate siloed roadmaps.
Figure 4. Market-Pull Technology Roadmaps
Customer Need Customer Issue
What customer need are we trying to solve, and External Events
will it be affected by external events?
Approach 1
Solution Approaches
Market Need 1
What approaches to solve the customer issue do
Market Need 2
we plan on pursuing?
Market Need 3
Product Categories
and Concepts
What new product concepts will be needed to
provide these solutions?
Technology Categories
and Concepts
What technologies will be needed to enable
these products?
Source: Gartner
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2
Technology-Push Roadmaps
Technology-push roadmaps depict product and market growth opportunities driven by
differentiated technologies. These tend to be longer term, often including analysis that
recommends investments over the next five to 10 years.
There are two styles of technology-push analysis — these are not mutually exclusive,
and many companies reflect both types of analyses in the same roadmap:
1. Differentiating internal capabilities:
This approach involves prioritizing the most valuable, most differentiated existing
internal technologies and brainstorming a future-technology-led development pathway.
Roadmapping teams can use the following guiding questions to identify technology
focus areas:
• W
hat technical discoveries have we made that provide substantial differentiation
versus competitors?
• What privileged insight do we have into customer needs and behavior that is
unavailable to our competitors?
• What unique applications of technologies to problems have we identified that
competitors have yet to recognize?
2. Integrating emerging technology opportunities:
This approach involves tracking new technologies or those used in adjacent spaces and
brainstorming how they can improve existing offerings or deliver new product/features.
New technologies can be sourced directly from technology scans or the organization’s
recent technology scouting.
In both approaches, roadmapping teams should prioritize technology competencies
to be developed based on their ability to create competitive advantage and future
differentiation.
Technology-push roadmaps are most useful for pushing organizations to think beyond
their near-term product strategy and to help identify capability gaps that need to be
filled via acquisition, partnerships, recruiting or talent development. However, true
technologypush roadmaps are often disconnected from core product strategy, which
can make it difficult to get business stakeholder buy-in to pursue riskier or new types of
technology investments. As a result, the recommended investments in these roadmaps
tend to have a lower commercialization rate than market-pull roadmaps.
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3
Hybrid Roadmaps
Hybrid roadmaps are a bridge between the market-pull and technology-push models.
These depict technology competencies required for product launches and a prioritized
set of technologies with a potential to create a long-term competitive advantage.
In practice, most companies first conduct the near-term market analysis that
identifies the technologies needed to support product strategy. They then identify
additional growth opportunities from either differentiated internal technology
platforms or emerging technologies. These growth opportunities often span multiple
BUs or product lines. This allows R&D leaders to create a roadmap that encourages
long-term planning and enterprisewide capability development (see Figure 5).
Hybrid roadmaps are particularly well-suited for planning the organization’s
reaction to emerging market and technology developments or charting R&D’s
support for a business transformation. Given the volume of analysis that could be
included in these roadmaps, some organizations struggle to build elegant one-page
visuals. In those cases, a hybrid roadmap might take the form of a multipage story
that walks stakeholders through the various components of analysis and related
recommendations.
At the start of a roadmapping exercise, most companies report that they plan to build
a hybrid roadmap. However, in practice, many companies deprioritize the technology-
push analysis to accelerate completion of the roadmap or, due to a lack of interest from
business stakeholders, end up building a market-pull roadmap. To avoid this pitfall, R&D
leaders should build a realistic project plan for the roadmapping team with specific time
allocated for conducting technology-push analysis and/or front-load this work to avoid
the speed trade-off toward the end of roadmapping.
Figure 5. Hybrid Technology Roadmap
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Market Events/
Customer Need
Product Launches
Market
Pull
Technology
Capabilities
Tech
Push
Source: Gartner
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Conclusion
Technology roadmaps help R&D leaders communicate how technology projects support
business strategy, make resourcing decisions and identify enterprisewide investment
opportunities. However, many companies try to visualize all the information in a single
document, hindering their ability to communicate roadmap applicability and depth
of analysis. Instead, companies should leverage the roadmapping exercise to target
multiple use cases and create multiple visuals of different altitudes for various audiences.
In addition, to get buy-in from business partners, R&D leaders should outline the link
between technology priorities and business goals and summarize key findings in
business-relevant language.
Recommended by the Authors
3 Foundational Technology Roadmapping Decisions
This report outlines the three critical decisions R&D leaders must make
before technology roadmapping to produce higher-value analysis.
This research is available to Gartner clients only.
Endnotes
1
Technology Roadmapping Benchmarks, Gartner, 2017
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