Roadmapping and Roadmaps: Definition and Underpinning Concepts

Roadmapping emerged from industry and has evolved over the decades, through improvements and refinements made by both practitioners and research groups, to become an established and extensively deployed method. Roadmaps are popular in helping to convey and communicate the essence of strategic plans, organizational initiatives, program pathways, and future courses of action. But what actually constitutes a roadmap? What are the unique attributes that distinguish them from other journey-mapping approaches and forward-looking business documents? Drawing upon active involvement in industrial engagements, applied research, tool development, and supported by the literature, a roadmap has now been defined as
a structured visual chronology of strategic intent
. Further, roadmapping has been defined as
the application of a temporal–spatial structured strategic lens
. As a result of these more rigorous and robust expressions, this article reports and reviews their underpinning concepts and dimensions, and puts them forward as the new standard definitions.