2. How to create a Strategic Roadmap

This is the second of three articles on Strategic Roadmapping and will focus on the methodology. This will provide the reader with a good understanding of the process and where it is similar and different to Programme Management. For those not familiar with this approach, 480Processes specialise in the creation of Strategic Roadmaps. For further information and examples contact [email protected].

The process, as do all processes, have an input(s) and an output. The main input is the short-list of objectives/goals that the Executive team have aligned and agreed on. The timing of the input will vary depending on the business’s financial year, but typically would be 2-3 months prior to the start of the new FY. The output of the process is the Strategic Roadmap(s) that has been agreed by the Executive team and published within the business. This needs to be available 1-2 months prior to the start of the Financial Year (FY) and assists in the setting of annual personal objectives for all employees.

Step 1: Answer any open questions about the Objectives

Each business objective must have an owner/sponsor who is responsible for the delivery of that objective. Typically, this would be the Executive or Director where most of the work will be completed to deliver the outcome, but in the case where the objective requires collaboration across several departments, the CEO/MD should nominate the sponsor. A detailed discussion between the objective sponsor and the manager building the Strategic Roadmap is invaluable to address any open questions. Ensure that you are both aligned on not only what needs to happen to achieve the objective but consider any risks or interdependencies between the other objectives. A good tip is to diarise a regular update meeting to cover off the status and any issues arising. Watch out for scope-changes part way through a longer objective and ask the sponsor for help to ensure that any scope changes are managed and controlled. There’s more than a 50% chance that the scope will be challenged, often for good reasons for the business, remembering that scope changes are disruptive to the planning and have to be communicated.

Step 2: Work-breakdown Structure

Project managers are more than familiar with this technique of breaking down a project into a sequence of activities – a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). A “Strategic Roadmapper” will follow the same approach but rather than focussing on specific tasks, will look at the higher-level activities that could be themselves projects in their own right. The skill in doing this is to find the correct level of detail – not too granular, but sufficiently detailed to be able to complete the resource analysis. For each activity/project, define the inputs and outputs as these will be needed in the next stage. It becomes apparent during this step of the process, how many Strategic Roadmaps will be required to cover all the objectives on the agreed short-list. A roadmap could illustrate 20-25 activities, but the aim is to keep it simple enough that it can be understood in seconds. If each objective has around 20 activities to complete it, create a roadmap for each objective.

Step 3: Sequencing the Activities

The complete list of Activities can now be sequenced based initially on “no resource constraints”. The thinking behind this is to plan for the optimal delivery of the objectives. The next step of the process will factor in the resources. In most cases, the sequence of activities will be obvious, where one must be completed before another can start. However, there are some additional considerations that can provide additional benefits.

·??????? Activities that provide intermediate benefits should be delivered as soon as possible, even if their outputs are not needed until later (as soon as possible rather than just in time)

·??????? Some activities can deliver an intermediate output sufficient to trigger a dependent activity (staggered activities).

·??????? Where there are alternative approaches or routes to delivering some activities, these require a decision to be taken. Adding Business Decisions to the Roadmap enables all involved to prepare for that decision to be taken.

The output is a diagram showing all the activities on a timeline, typically month by month. Each activity and both input and output arrows labelled. For complex roadmaps, using swim-lanes helps cluster similar or related activities together. An example would have the IT activities in one swim-lane and the Operational activities in another.

Step 4: Business Resource Planning

The penultimate step is to analyse the resources that will be required to deliver the strategic objective(s). Consider not only the internal resources required, but include budget, external resources and any specific knowledge that is essential for the objective’s completion. Resource planning is perhaps the most complex of the 5 steps and is a topic that is covered in detail by many other authors. I would recommend The Project Workout by Robert Buttrick as an excellent reference work on all things Programme and Project Management related. The most important factor is the method of estimating the amount of resource needed; pure guess or educated estimate? Having access to a database that has been created from live data from previous projects is the best approach. From personal experience, I have found that some resource managers have an ability to make a good estimate with appropriate contingency, and others are overly optimistic. A good tip is to have a detailed discussion with each resource manager, which can often help is achieving better resourcing estimates. Discussion with the sponsor will determine if increasing resources is an option within the resourcing strategic plans. Remember that on-boarding new resources takes time and may not be a viable solution. The "Strategic Roadmapper" must now align the resource plan and the ideal roadmap to produce a viable roadmap that can be delivered. It is likely that several different scenarios need to be assessed to find the optimal plan (trade-offs). The adjusted roadmap is the input to the final step of the process.

Step 5: Sponsor and Executive Approval?

Developing a roadmap and securing all the required resources and budget can be a time-consuming process. However, whilst working to a fixed schedule, there is often little time to run multiple iterations of the plan. The start of the new FY is approaching fast and there’s still many decisions to be taken.

Discussion with the sponsor is the first action and will undoubtedly allow both of you to go over the scenarios and appraise which of them provides the best approach considering benefits, effort, and risk. Once aligned, the proposal can be taken to the wider Executive team for review and approval. Avoid having to iterate the roadmap a further time and necessitating a second meeting with the Executive, by having viable alternatives “in the back pocket”. Aim to leave the meeting with a clear approved Strategic Roadmap with all the Executive team aligned.

Securing full approval and a green light for the Strategic Roadmap from the Executive team is a satisfying moment. More importantly, the business now has an invaluable tool to ensure that the business-critical objectives can be delivered. Publishing the Strategic Roadmap is the last task in this step and ensure that people know about it.

In the next article, I will cover the process to keep the Strategic Roadmap alive and up to date and include a tip for simplifying the updating process. It needs to be used at regular review meetings for the year or until the objectives are complete.