Roadmap examples

I’ve written quite a few words concerning Decision Driven® Strategy roadmaps in the past week, so here’s a few pictures to illustrate important concepts. Here’s a roadmap for an example water filter company that highlights their thinking concerning possible futures (alternatives across multiple decisions); the roadmap bars/text colors are controlled by the Preference (aka commitment [...]

More roadmapping enhancements

Yesterday I explained the logic behind 2 ways to “colorize” roadmaps based on Preference (commitment level, decideness) and Implementation Status.  This wasn’t a theoretical discussion - today I released an enhanced roadmap feature within the Decision Driven® Strategy and Life web services that supports both schemes.  I also added support for very large browser sizes (1600 x [...]

Interpreting roadmaps

Yesterday I explained the difference between a roadmap and a project plan; both display bars on a timeline, but the meaning of the bars is radically different. Roadmaps display the time-availability and evolution of the alternatives for a set of decisions; the roadmap bar represents the “good-for” period in the life of an alternative during [...]

Roadmapping basics

Over the years I’ve helped numerous groups create technology, capability, product, platform and strategy roadmaps.  Most of these used a format similar to one popularized by Bob Galvin during his tenure at the helm of Motorola.  Such roadmaps depict the evolution of a technology, product, etc. through a series of states (releases, maturity/performance levels).    Even though roadmaps and [...]

Align Roadmaps feature released

Yesterday, I released the new Align Roadmaps feature for the Decision Driven® Strategy and Decision Driven® Life web services.  This feature will enable you to build a set of linked roadmaps, i.e. to time-align the alternatives across multiple decisions.  The most common use of this in business is to produce a set of technology roadmaps [...]

Strategic roadmapping jump-start service

In conjunction with the enriched Align Roadmaps capability within the Decision Driven® Strategy web service, I’m re-launching a new consulting service, a Strategic Roadmapping Jump-Start.  I’ve delivered many variants of this service with high-tech clients over the last decade, but I’m really excited about offering this service now that I have a powerful, but simple-to-use [...]

Roadmaps for strategic alignment

Businesses have a lot of moving parts.  It’s a challenge to keep everything running in a smooth and synchronized manner in the present.  It’s even a greater challenge to anticipate some future state of your business and create and align all the elements that will contribute to future success.  The challenge of strategic alignment grows in complexity [...]

Drain the swamp

People are really, really busy these days.  The best and brightest workers are the busiest; the reward for great work is more work.  Everyone seems so busy fighting operational fires that they have almost no time to invest in strategic decisions that will create a better future.  Yet they must … To mix in a few [...]

Situation Appraisal for strategic situations

I regularly come into contact with highly skilled professionals who have had training in human thinking patterns (aka rational process, systems thinking) somewhere in their past.  A Kepner-Tregoe Problem Solving & Decision-Making (PSDM) workshop was my first introduction into this field. A bit of history as I understand it …  Dr. Charles Kepner and Dr. [...]

Translating methods into software

I take note that whenever I do a burst of software development to enhance the Decision Driven® Strategy and Life web services, my blogging suffers.  I think that’s because software prototyping, coding and debugging focuses the mind on very small scale decisions, implementation details and problem analysis on why the last coding change produces such [...]