Light-weighting innovation strategy: A roadmap-portfolio toolkit

The field of strategic technology management contains a number of practical tools to help align technology investment with business objectives and so support successful innovation. However the application of such tools is often seen by organizations as being difficult to configure, combine and also resource consuming to deploy. Thus, the research question is: can a light-weighted intuitive approach deliver valuable results in a short time and thus provide companies with a tested process that they would be more willing to apply? The aim of this research was to develop and test an efficient roadmap-portfolio toolkit approach for supporting the development and implementation of innovation strategy by selecting and exploring opportunities. Drawing on literature and practice, the workshop process was developed around structured templates and run in eight organizations (four small companies and four units of larger companies), with the approach refined using learning from each application. The roadmap-portfolio toolkit was robust and delivered valuable insights to the companies, many of whom plan to use or adapt it for themselves in further workshops. From a practical perspective, companies can obtain value from light-weighted interactions if framed correctly, however a single workshop does not create a whole innovation strategy. It has been demonstrated that efficient, pre-configured toolkits are highly useful and functional when packaged as a template-based workshop process to support, not replace, wider strategic discussions and decision-making.