Technology Roadmapping Update

In a nice long post over at Accelerating Innovation, Egils Milbergs writes about the state of manufacturing in America and the promise for improvement he sees with the upcoming arrival of a new Presidential administration. Among quite a few nice points, he includes this about the potential of technology roadmapping:

Technology Roadmapping and Federal Research Priorities. Technology roadmaps represent a consensus regarding industry direction and research needs, innovation trajectories, alternative scenarios and the possibility of disruptive technologies and surprises. Industry associations and sector based collaborations are making greater use of technology roadmapping methodologies as an input to the federal R&D priority setting process as well as inputs to their own innovation planning. Roadmapping exercises can provide the basis for public and private investments in radically new production systems.

I couldn’t agree more and there can be little doubt that there’s a ton of room for improvement in way things have been done in Washington DC. In roadmapping practices, we talk all the time about the power of the process to break down silos (the barriers to communication that form in any large organization). Getting industries and the federal government to work together would be a great example of this in action.

As the author writes, one other aspect of roadmapping that needs to be emphasized is its ability to help an organization see the future with more clarity. I’ve sat in on many great workshops where a group of people who are not used to thinking out more beyond the next couple of years are asked to envision where their group should be 5 or 10 or more years from today. Once they get used to the concept, they really start to enjoy themselves. They realize they can play a critical part in defining the future of their company and that’s really powerful. Its this kind of event that is really needed today in government if we expect to stay competitive in the new world of the 21st century.

Do I believe that blog posts like this one or Egils’ will change anything? No; there are a lot of reasons for why the system works the way it does today. But there is hope as long as someone out there is pushing. Please read all of Egils’ post to see why “innovation” can be more than just this year’s enterprise buzzword.