How to develop your business t...
Software
development without a roadmap is like driving off a cliff — an undertaking that
seriously jeopardizes your product’s life. Here’s how to develop a business
technology roadmap that ensures your project safely reaches its final
destination.
When people
have an idea for a piece of software or an app, they tend to be pretty
energized about getting it to market as quickly as possible. It’s exciting to
create an app or piece of software no one’s ever imagined or built before. As
software developers, we’re usually right there with them.
At some point, though, we need to sit down with clients and give them a sobering reality: software development without a business technology roadmap can be a lot like driving aimlessly. Sure, you get to discover new worlds and experience unexpected adventures, but you also frequently get lost, and can lose enthusiasm for the journey.
What Is A Business Technology
Roadmap?
Unlike
detailed blueprints that lay out all tasks, deadlines, bug reports, and more
along the way, technology roadmaps are high-level visual summaries highlighting
a company’s vision or plans.
A technology
roadmap feeds the sprint and grooming processes, providing insight into how the
product will travel from start to end. It makes it easier for development teams
to understand how the product will evolve. It makes near-term decisions that
don’t compromise on future work and gains awareness of features which are not
working.
Companies
can use technology roadmaps to review their internal IT, DevOps,
infrastructure, architecture, software, internal system, and hardware
procurement policies and procedures with innovation and efficiency in mind. The
roadmap helps them define how a new IT tool, process, or technology supports
their business strategy and growth and aligns projects with short and long-term
goals.
A typical IT roadmap covers everything from requirements to testing and integrations. A development team’s work dictates software or development roadmaps, highlighting tech initiatives, epics, and features while communicating the team’s primary goals.
The Role of a Technology Roadmap in
Digital Transformation
Today’s
digital transformations focus on three key areas that are customer experience,
operational processes, and business models. Whether it’s for a small company or
multi-national enterprise, a well-developed business technology roadmap helps
companies reach short and long-term digital transformation goals by allowing
them to remain strong enough to accommodate changes. Building long-term value
in the product and avoid roadblocks and other obstacles.
Because
digital transformation is a relatively new concept, it’s often a journey filled
with blind spots. On the one hand, the digital transformation process is seen
as using technologies to create new or modify existing business models. On the
other hand, it’s about companies needing to embrace new cultures, structures,
and processes that align with their IT architecture. One thing is for sure that
digital transformation is a fundamental change for any company.
Just about
every business can benefit from developing their business technology roadmap as
part of their digital transformation plan. New digital advances and the
opportunity to improve traditional technologies to change customer
relationships and employee experiences put businesses on a clear and rewarding
path for turning technology into transformation.
Creating A Technology Roadmap To
Drive Successful Innovation
Many
businesses already have a technology roadmap. The question is whether that map
is pointing to where they want to go, or has it only carried them to the
present leg of the journey? Are they focused only on existing projects, or are
they anticipating future breakthroughs?
The best
technology roadmaps continually evolve, adding new destination points and
aligning all resources and capabilities behind long-term goals. It’s not an
easy process, but a methodical approach helps.
1. IDENTIFY GOALS
Technology
roadmaps must integrate long-term goals and visions. It’s often best to start
at the end and work backward. For instance, in software development, milestones
are often thought of as software releases or new versions of a project. However,
with a business roadmap, goals and initiatives also include things like hitting
revenue targets or launching in a new region or market, anything that’s a
significant result of combined efforts.
2. SEEK INPUT FROM STAKEHOLDERS
For smaller
businesses, this often means involving everyone. Including all pertinent
stakeholders and decision-makers brings different views and priorities to the
table and helps establish a clear direction for where the company is headed. As
collaboration is key to most business success, it also increases the chance of
the roadmap being implemented.
3. EVALUATE CURRENT SYSTEMS AND CHART
A COURSE
All business
technology roadmaps include negotiating a budget. Now’s the time to question
previous decisions to see if they still align with the company’s vision. For
example, a company has the goal of doubling customers, so assumes it must
increase hardware capacity to meet it. That can cost significant sums of money.
Another approach might be to make strategic changes to the software or combine
current tools with custom software, typically a far less expensive strategy.
4. BE OPEN TO CHANGE
Clear vision
and a revised budget in hand, it’s now possible to view the business landscape
with a critical set of eyes looking. Perhaps a company previously developed a
custom app because no existing product satisfied its needs — but now that
software exists! The custom software could possibly be retired for the new
software that will be supported by someone else.
That makes
it possible to use in-house staff to develop new, potentially more profitable
products. Sometimes bringing in an outside consultant to audit systems,
processes, and teams help identify changes a business can make to support improvements
and future initiatives.
5. SET PRIORITIES
Up next is
determining what’s critical, blocking, or simple. Items should be prioritized,
and continuous feedback should be solicited. Project management tools can
simplify the process and ensures items are linked to their dependencies and
what needs to be done first is clear.
6. BUILD OUT TIMELINES
Each task or
initiative comes with its own level of effort. It’s critical to pull in the
right technical people so to get an estimate around each effort. This should
not be a long, drawn-out endeavor. Instead, it should be a quick activity that
verifies how everyone’s on the same page. Often leadership has items it
believes can be implemented quickly, but the team is of the mind it will take
much longer to pull off.
7. DEVISE A BUDGET
Once there’s
a clear view of what can be worked on, when it can be worked on, and how long
it might take to implement, there’s enough information to fashion a budget for
each item. Each item’s details should be worked through fully to get an as
accurate as possible estimate for what’s needed. Budget decisions can also
affect how urgent or necessary an item truly is. Some businesses find they’re
better off putting something on the back burner or investing in a service that
solves the same problem.
8. VISUALIZE THE ROADMAP
Finally!
Project implementation planning can now begin. Each project should be laid out
and overlaid with the resources needed for project delivery. If working in software
development environment, there’s no need to write out every detail of every
feature. Simply focus on high-level component delivery, marketing dates, and
other top-level deadlines. While building out the software, teams can pull in
features on a different schedule, but they should always work towards the
company’s high-level schedule.
Many
businesses find that creating a steering committee or oversight committee helps
to see if initiatives are following a steady path or are veering off-course.
These committees can be helpful in that they’re not involved in the day-to-day
delivery of a product like development teams are.
Doing What’s Best For The Journey And
The Destination
Rushed
software development projects don’t save time or money, and they often
negatively affect quality — the greater a company’s rush to launch, the greater
the risk. Before starting any software development project, a business should
take the time needed to develop a technology roadmap.