How To Create A Roadmap For A Strategic Plan – Most businesses view their information technology team as a reactive, strategic department. Of course, the IT team needs to be strategic. Their job is to ensure that the company has the tools and processes to achieve its business goals. And although some of them use it, one of the best ways for an IT department to successfully execute its plan is to create an IT strategy roadmap.
In this post, we discuss best practices for developing a roadmap that informs a company’s high-level IT plans and goals.
How To Create A Roadmap For A Strategic Plan
Before we jump into it, let’s briefly review the basics. We’ll cover what a roadmap is, then dive into the specifics of a strategic IT roadmap and why your company should have one.
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If you are an IT professional, you may not be familiar with the world of roadmapping. So, what is a roadmap? Think of it as a strategic plan to achieve a set of high-level goals. A roadmap doesn’t include all the individual tasks needed to reach these goals—only the important steps and milestones the team needs to complete on their journey to achieve the desired outcome.
Let’s see how it works in practice. In product management, roadmaps are used all the time, and the product team typically follows this sequence:
Second: translate this vision into a strategic plan—a roadmap—that includes the key themes the team needs to focus on to develop this industry-changing product.)
(Example theme: “Develop APIs to easily connect more disparate databases so that data analysts can discover new data previously locked out due to technical incompatibility.”)
What Is A Roadmap? A Starter Guide To Roadmapping + Examples
Third: Break down the high-level strategic themes of the roadmap into a strategic action plan—using a task management app, product backlog, and other strategic tools.
As you can see from the example above, a roadmap represents the middle tier in high-level planning—between the vision and the strategic action steps required to execute that vision.
The same applies to the IT strategy roadmap, which should translate the broad vision for the company’s IT infrastructure into a set of strategic steps and milestones necessary to achieve that vision. Here is an example:
Creating an IT strategy roadmap can have significant benefits for the IT department and the company as a whole. Here are some examples.
Definitive Guide To Developing An It Strategy And Roadmap
In any endeavor, if you are not on offense, you are on defense. Without a strategic plan to guide the team’s work, the IT department is always in reactive mode. Worse, a department known for responding to employees’ technical troubleshooting requests is less likely to help shape the organization’s strategic future.
IT provides proactive planning to the IT department to contribute to the company’s larger business goals by creating an IT strategy roadmap.
An IT strategy roadmap also helps the IT team justify the costs and other resources needed to carry out its proposed technology plans. Without a strategic blueprint for why the team wants to migrate to a new technology infrastructure or implement new corporate governance guidelines, it will be more difficult for the IT department to get approval from the heads of affected departments to move forward.
But if the team can present its plans in a clear and compelling strategic roadmap, gaining that buy-in will be much easier.
Develop A Master Data Management Strategy And Roadmap
In many companies, IT departments function as silos. They respond to employee requests for help with their technology tools, and they send company-wide messages when they create new systems or change company rules for using existing applications. But other than these rare occasions, IT doesn’t regularly collaborate with the rest of the company.
This is a strategic loss for the company. Every department can benefit from collaborating more closely with IT and communicating what their department needs to be successful.
The process of creating an IT strategy roadmap requires the IT team to work more closely with each area of the business—to learn about their workflows, the challenges they face, and the areas they need help becoming more efficient and effective.
Now that we’ve reviewed what an IT strategy roadmap is and some of its strategic benefits, let’s discuss tips for developing one for your company’s IT department.
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An IT strategy roadmap does not exist in a vacuum. The goal of this roadmap is to help you develop and implement a strategy that equips your company with the technology infrastructure to achieve your company’s business goals. That means you need input from people outside of IT.
To make sure you understand all of your company’s technology needs and goals, you’ll want to involve representatives from each area of your company. For example, it includes leaders from marketing, sales, engineering, accounting, HR, product management, etc.
Most product roadmaps today contain a strategic forecast that goes only a few months into the future. This is especially true of organizations that follow an agile framework, where the product team targets frequent product iterations based on continuous market feedback.
In a 2020 market research report on product managers, for example, we found that the majority of product teams plan their roadmaps for a year or less—most only go out between two and six months.
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But an IT strategy roadmap can and should cover a longer time horizon. Your work affects many areas of the organization and takes more time than iteration for a specific product.
A company-wide transition from on-prem systems to cloud services can take more than a year. For example, consider how much time it takes to select vet vendors and the right solutions,
Training employees on new tools, creating and implementing new governance rules, developing cybersecurity operations around new infrastructure, etc.
Note: Although the report focuses on product managers, our 2020 report addresses many of the common goals, practices and challenges involved in creating any type of roadmap. If you’re in IT and new to the roadmapping experience, we believe you’ll learn a lot by reviewing this report:
The Art Of The Strategic Product Roadmap
This is a best practice for roadmapping in general and creating an IT strategy roadmap is no exception. As we discussed above, one benefit of having a strategic roadmap is that it helps IT managers gain stakeholder buy-in to move forward with their plans.
One of the best ways to gain that buy-in is to include your strategic rationale for each initiative along with that initiative in the roadmap itself.
If you include a roadmap theme of “Implement a company-wide online team-messaging app,” make it clear why you prioritized the initiative. Perhaps your answer is, “Our research indicates that we can see a 20% increase in staff productivity with a messaging app that employees can use from anywhere to collaborate with colleagues in real time.”
When they develop their first roadmap, most teams throw every great idea at it. This is understandable but counterintuitive. You need to be realistic when you create your IT strategy roadmap. Given the limited resources you have and your other responsibilities, how many major new projects can you make progress on at once?
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That’s why prioritizing your roadmap is the most challenging part of creating it. Coming up with ideas is not a problem. Both your team and stakeholders from other departments have many suggestions and requests for new IT initiatives. The challenge is limiting your roadmap to just a few core strategic goals and finding a long-term home for all the other tasks—like the backlog—that you can’t focus on today, but are a priority for tomorrow.
Try to limit your roadmap to a few top initiatives that generate the greatest strategic value for the time invested. You’ll have a reference point to check in to focus on the right strategic initiatives. It will be easier for you to politely decline requests for projects that take you off your strategic path. And you’ll know your team is always working on the right initiatives—because you already make them a top priority.
If you use the right roadmapping software, creating your IT roadmap will be easier from a technical perspective. The right app lets you spin up a new IT roadmap in minutes.
However, when it comes to how to create a roadmap, how much detail to include, and tried-and-true techniques for prioritizing key initiatives among the many on your list, you should consult the roadmap experts: product managers.
Visio Strategy Roadmap Template
Before you start hammering out your first IT roadmap, invite your favorite PM over for lunch. Then, let them share their knowledge in creating a roadmap that hits all the marks. It must forcefully communicate your IT strategy, gain stakeholder approval, and balance competing strategic IT needs across the company. It should help align all departments around a shared goal of building a strong technology infrastructure for a better company future.
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