This is continuation of my previous blog: Successful Product-Technology Roadmapping.

The initiation phase of the roadmapping process basically involves identifying team members, establishing executive-level sponsorship and defining scope and boundaries of the activity. As simple as these sound, I have seen time and time again activities come to halt when team doesn’t have the right skills, or is confused on the scope of their responsibility and does not have a sponsor who is able to remove the barriers that they are facing.

Team… Which team?

First and foremost, you need to identify a good facilitator to help drive the activities. This could be the person that is in the leadership role, or someone from outside the team, or maybe a set of individuals that rotate the facilitation responsibilities. However it is done, the chosen facilitator needs to exhibit certain characteristics:

• should have some level of experience as a group leader;
• recognizes that it is about the goals and accomplishments of the group, and objectively separates her personal opinions;
• continuously drives shared responsibility and ownership in the group, but not afraid to jump in to get the ball rolling when needed;
• quite comfortable with different personality styles, and not afraid of tension and conflict;
• understands the processes, and utilizes available tools when needed to help the team with idea generation, creative exploration, consensus building, team building, …
• effective listener, careful observer, good communicator, and motivator;

The Tuckman model of team development highlights 5 phases that teams go through: forming → storming → norming → performing → adjourning/transforming. It is the facilitator’s role to efficiently and effectively move the team through each stage.

The development phase of the roadmapping activity is intense. It requires knowledge and experience in the industry, market, customers, competitors, products, and technologies, as well as skills in analysis, problem solving, critical thinking and planning. Given that, you need a cross-functional team, subject matter experts, and individuals with diverse backgrounds and styles. Studies have shown that there is an inverse correlation between the team size and team effectiveness: the larger the team, the more complex communication, coordination and collaboration becomes. If you end up with less than an ideal team size of 5-9, experiment with different team structures, such as core vs. extended team, sub-teams, steering committee, advisory councils, etc. Your ultimate goal is to ensure that the collaborative roadmapping activity will result in shared ownership and accountability.

Did someone say sponsor?

Executive sponsorship and management commitment is crucial for a successful roadmapping process. For product-technology roadmaps, this is usually the business unit manager. However, in technology driven firms the activity is quite often sponsored through the R&D Director.

It is one thing to have an executive sponsor and another to have an effective working relationship with her. A sponsor can be a great benefit when steering through political and organizational waters, refining scope and boundary, removing barriers, identifying stakeholders and providing general guidance and coaching to the team. To build that relationship, agree on regular meetings for status updates and to raise and resolve issues. Anyone that had the pain of scheduling meetings for many busy senior-level managers will certainly appreciate getting help from your sponsor, such as using her staff meetings for regular team updates.

What is my box?

Before launching into the Development Phase, the team needs to clearly define the scope and boundaries: what is in and out, where does the activity begin and end. Developing a solid scope and getting an agreement with the team, sponsor and stakeholders is critical to the success of the team, and it is a negotiation and validation process.

The executive sponsor is ultimately responsible for stating and approving the need and timeframe for the roadmapping activity. This could be anything from achieving market leadership in 3-5 years, to building a competitive position with existing resources and budget in a new market in 3-5 years. However, this objective is what drives the activity, deliverables and analysis of alternatives.

To help define your scope and boundaries, here are some starting questions to think about:

• What products and technologies are included in the scope of the activity? What markets, customers and technologies are off the table?
• What organizational value chain processes (support, sales, services, manufacturing, …) are not included in the scope?
• What are the organizational and cross-organizational boundaries that should be considered?
• Are there any unspoken assumptions that needs to be clarified?

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