How to Create a Technology Roadmap To Support Your Company’s Growth Goals

Every time I come up with an idea, I get so pumped up about it that I want to execute and market it as fast as possible. I am sure you have experienced this too. There is nothing more exciting than experiencing innovation and growth firsthand. However, at one point you realize that no matter how excited, passionate or articulate you are about your desired result, or how much of that passion rubs off on and motivates your team, bringing your brainchild to life and making it real is going to take more than an capable and motivated team with a clear definition of success. Getting from where you are to where you know you need to be isn’t as simple as driving from one point to another. It’s important to take a step back and face the sobering reality: to have any chance of success, you’re going to need to map out your journey. Enter: the technology roadmap.

I recently asked a business leader for his definition of success as it relates to software R&D. His answer? “Steady cadence of value delivery (outcomes, not output.)” I couldn’t have said it better myself! But let’s break this down. We all know it’s supremely easy for dev teams to stay crazy busy working diligently on important things. Output can be immense, but it can also be disconnected from value delivery. After all, who cares if a sprint or milestone was successful if you don’t have anything to sell at the end of it? Time and time again, CEOs are not sure how to translate their business goals into concrete incremental technical milestones for their software dev teams. For software companies, this can be the critical piece that separates successful companies from unsuccessful ones. An honest, pragmatic and aligned technology roadmap charts the course for your R&D team, ensures that limited resources are deployed efficiently, and makes sure that you have a steady cadence of value delivery. That’s the ticket to the best possible combination of risk and return for your R&D investment.

What is a technology roadmap?

Unlike a detailed blueprint that lays out each task, view, feature or issue, a tech roadmap is a high-level, easy-to-understand sequence of business and technology milestones designed to help your leadership and technology teams drive your company to the destination you’ve chosen. It’s a living document and should be reviewed quarterly. The concept is simple: Define quarterly business milestones for the next 18-24 months, and for each one of those, ask your tech leaders to define a set of technology milestones needed to achieve them. 

If you’ve adopted the Rockefeller Habits or EOS, just replace ‘milestone’ with ‘rock’, and you’re in business. This simple, yet insightful process makes sure you’ll get to your final destination as quickly as possible, and with as little risk as possible. But the most useful result of embracing this tool is the improved accountability and ownership it fosters in the ranks, giving insight into the journey of your product from the beginning to the end. 

Importance of technology roadmap

Ultimately, a well thought out technology roadmap makes it easier for your development team to:

• Get an idea of the evolution of the product
• Make better decisions today that will support and accelerate work that must be done in the future
• Deliver more value every 30, 60, and 90 days

Your company can utilize tech roadmaps to align and appropriately sequence investments in infrastructure, internal IT, architecture, DevOps, hardware procurement, and software policies with efficiency and innovation in mind. A roadmap will help you determine how a process, technology, or IT tool is supporting your business growth and strategy. The roadmap aligns your projects with both long- and short-term goals.

You can go about creating a tech roadmap for your company that supports your business objectives in countless ways. A general tech roadmap includes everything from discovery and priorities to integrations and testing. 

How to Effectively Create a Technology Roadmap

Start by identifying your business goals

Begin with what you want the end result to be in mind, generally 9-18 months out. There is no point in creating a roadmap if it does not capture your company’s short-, medium-, and long-term objectives. If you want to grow your company this year or next, having an effective roadmap is the best way for you to ensure that you’re efficiently deploying capital, be it human or financial. 

Engage your senior tech leaders

After you have identified your primary business milestones over the next 18-24 months, quarter-by-quarter, pull in your senior tech leads and get their buy-in–make sure they understand and agree on the order and timeline for each of your milestones. Then challenge them to identify and capture the necessary tech milestones needed to achieve each and every one one of your business milestones.  

Shortlist milestones that every single person agrees on

It’s critical that all parties are comfortable with how the tech and business milestones are sequenced and slotted for any given quarter. Collaboration and communication are important, but achieving crystal clarity on tangible milestones is just as important to ensure your roadmap is effective. For every milestone and item on the roadmap, our teams all have to agree on the following:

• The ultimate business reason (customer acquisition, reducing churn, etc.)
• The value provided to the customer
• The value provided to the business
• The risk of not building
• What’s in and out of scope for the company 

This simple process gives you clarity, maximizes the accountability and ownership in your ranks, and helps you achieve a steady cadence of value delivery that translates directly into net new revenue and growth.  

Shining a light down the road

It’s important to keep in mind that just like with any map, the main purpose of the tech roadmap is to illuminate the road ahead. So when you’re creating it, it’s important for you to shine a light as far down the path as you possibly can (18-24 months if possible). Of course you do this full well knowing that things are going to change, and what you have slated for Q3 next year may look very different in Q1 than it does right now. That’s okay! An effective tech roadmap is a living document and you’re probably going to make adjustments to it every quarter. But what you’ll find if you embrace this powerful tool is that usually any adjustments you make will be for 2-3 quarters down the road, so that your R&D team can adapt to those changes proactively, and handle those changes with lower risk and effort than if they were flying blind or driving without a map. You’ll have a more effective and efficient R&D team, higher quality products, and better ROI on R&D.

How Can Modularis Help?

Modularis is experienced in tackling all kinds of R&D departments. When it comes to tech roadmaps, there is never a one-size-fits-all approach. However, there are certain actionable steps that can be taken to ensure a more efficient, productive, and effective roadmap and strategy that meets your business goals.

In order to help companies with their initial step, we have created a Technology 360 Self Assessment. It can help you get a better understanding of R&D to ensure you deliver maximum value to customers.

We also provide a 2-day product roadmap workshop that can teach you how to align your software R&D efforts with the long-term goals of your business. 

At Modularis, we accelerate the process of software development for companies and ensure a smooth journey. Subscribe to our LinkedIn to learn more about fast innovation. If you are in search of a solution development partner that brings speed, flexibility, and expertise, contact us today.