Roadmaps - navigating a complex, fast-moving world

Roadmapping is a strategic exercise that bridges visions and the current state by defining the most important milestones and action points. It helps organizations plan in the uncertain, clarify the long-term direction and ensure that you get where you want to go.

RISE offer within roadmaps:

Process management for the development of roadmaps
Advice, support and concrete efforts for the implementation of roadmaps
Analysis of existing roadmaps

What is a roadmap?

Roadmaps describe the path from the present to a future desired state through a number of timed milestones or action points. Roadmapping is a strategic exercise that begins with understanding the current state and defining the desirable future state and goes on to bridge the two by identifying the important development needs and planning what needs to be done. Roadmapping does not end with the development of a roadmap – the roadmap should be seen as a living document that needs to be reviewed and revised continuously to handle changes internally in the organization and trends that arise or change in the outside world.

Why roadmaps?

Major societal challenges, growing complexity and the pace of change in the outside world increase the importance of and complicate long-term strategic planning on several levels. Roadmaps help organizations plan in the uncertain and navigate the complexity, clarify organizational and societal directions, and rally for a sustainable future. By developing roadmaps in cooperation, you create an arena for social dialogue and give actors the opportunity to synchronise efforts, understand dependencies, explore synergies and prevent goal conflicts. Results from the roadmap can also be used for communication purposes, to present the chosen direction to relevant target groups.

Roadmap planning can also be used for individual organizations as a tool to set long-term visions, goals and to explore how to get there.

Roadmaps in organizations and co-creation

Roadmaps are thus not just a tool for launching a product (product roadmaps) or planning technical innovation work (technology roadmaps). Recently, roadmap planning has been generally applied in broader contexts, by several types of actors, with increased pressure on collaboration and major common challenges in focus. As an example, there are the sector-specific roadmaps that have been developed within the framework of Fossil Free Sweden, or the World Business Council for Sustainable Development's so-called Sustainable Development Goals Sector Roadmaps. Roadmaps have also begun to be applied in the public sector: Swedish municipalities use roadmap planning as a way to coordinate climate and environmental work, where the division of responsibilities is spread out between several organizational units.

For whom?

RISE supports industries and companies, municipalities and other actor constellations in the development, adaptation, implementation of stress tests and implementation of roadmaps, and support decision-makers with analyzes of existing roadmaps.