Strategic Roadmap: A Framework for Achieving Your Goals

Organizations need a way to not only articulate a strategic vision, but also translate that strategy into a timeline of deliverables and business outcomes. A strategic roadmap provides a high-level blueprint of the company’s strategy execution, looking at:

• How the enterprise will achieve its goals
• In what order they will achieve those goals
• When those goals will be achieved

Just how important are strategic roadmaps? Consider the following:

By 2026, businesses will spend an estimated $1.4 trillion dollars due to the consequences of strategic drift. – Shift vs. Drift: Connecting Strategy to Outcomes

According to research developed by Economist Impact, commissioned by Planview, more than 80% of executives see the need to improve internal communications, cross-functional collaboration, and employee engagement. What’s more, 86% of executives admit they need to improve accountability in their strategy implementation. And the strategic roadmap is an important part of addressing these problems.

That’s because strategic roadmaps play an important role in cross-functional orchestration and managing dependencies by:

• Aligning cross-functional teams to overarching strategic objectives
• Visually tracking dependencies between delivery items

This guide will help you take action by highlighting essential components to include in your roadmap, showing examples, and demonstrating how to choose the best strategic roadmap software for your organization.

A strategic roadmap outlines the major steps and milestones required to reach a desired state, tracking progress along the way to inform decisions. It is a visual guide that connects strategy and execution, optimizing resources and giving purpose to the work.

Now, let’s look at what it’s not. Your strategic roadmap isn’t the same as a strategic plan.

While they’re commonly confused and conflated, roadmaps and plans serve two different purposes. The strategic plan provides the overall direction and objectives you aim to achieve.

The strategic roadmap breaks down those objectives into actionable stages, guiding the implementation process, and ensuring alignment across the organization.

Navigation apps provide a good analogy for the value of roadmapping. You can see your starting point and desired end point on the map (your strategic plan), and the turn-by-turn instructions show you how to navigate from Point A to Point B (your strategic roadmap). Ultimately, the map ensures you won’t get lost along the way. Even if you get off track or need to make a detour, your roadmap can adjust, rerouting you back onto the right path towards your destination.

The strategic roadmap is your visual guide for achieving business outcomes by completing deliverables connected to those outcomes. Use it to break down strategic objectives into actionable initiatives and timelines.

Using a strategic roadmap helps ensure organizational capacity is directed towards the work that’s connected to strategy, and that teams understand how their work contributes to the overarching strategy.

It also facilitates effective communication across the enterprise, fostering transparency, focused goal alignment, and greater productivity. With a strategy roadmap in place, organizations can navigate complexities like dependencies and risks, adapt to change, and make informed decisions to drive sustainable growth and success.

There are two kinds of strategic roadmaps: static and dynamic. Each approach planning and executing a strategic vision differently, yet only one can adapt to inevitable priority and plan changes.

Static Roadmaps

Traditional and linear in nature, static roadmaps outline a set plan with defined goals, milestones, and timelines that remain fixed over the course of the planning period. These roadmaps are typically detailed and comprehensive, often siloed, and provide a clear blueprint for action.

While static roadmaps offer stability and predictability, they often struggle to adapt to internal and external changes. They’re disconnected, meaning they can quickly become outdated and require regular maintenance if there are ongoing changes to the plan.

Dynamic Roadmaps

On the other hand, dynamic roadmaps are flexible and responsive to change, disruptions, and emerging opportunities.

Dynamic roadmaps are more than a simple static, visual representation of your strategic vision. They’re connected to work, initiatives, and outcomes and change the moment your plans shift.

As an evolving, interactive document, dynamic roadmaps are more resilient in the face of uncertainty and complexity, continuously aligning work and resources to strategy. They also ensure teams remain focused on desired outcomes and have the freedom to adjust execution strategy and timelines to deliver on the strategic priorities.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s look at what you need for creating an effective strategic roadmap.

The strategic roadmap is an overview of a company’s current state, desired state, and plans to bridge the two. While each organization may incorporate specific components in its roadmap, there are at least five foundational elements to every strategic roadmap.

1. Strategic objectives and goals

The high-level outcomes the organization wants to achieve, such as launching a new product, enhancing the customer experience, or optimizing digital transformation. Goals should provide a clear direction and be S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).

2. Initiatives

The projects or programs the organization will undertake to reach the strategic objectives, such as launching a new product, expanding into new markets, or improving a process. The strategic initiatives should be aligned with the organization’s strategic priorities.

3. Action items

The specific task-level activities necessary to achieve each initiative, such as conducting research, designing features, or testing prototypes.

4. Timeline and milestones

The estimated duration and sequence of the initiatives and action items, noting start and end dates. The strategic roadmap should also highlight dependencies and potential obstacles that could cause delays.

5. Resources

The people, budget, and tools required or allocated for each initiative and action item, such as team members, funding, or software. Resources should be allocated based on the initiative’s priority.

With a better understanding of a strategic roadmap’s purpose and elements, you are ready to begin strategic roadmapping. The ultimate goal? Connect planning to delivery in a visual, sharable way.

State vision and context

The vision should connect the long-term vision to short-term action. Harvard Business Review says that doing this “ensures that every unit of the company understands and has agreed to the balance between short-term goals and the longer-term vision of their daily work.”

In the context of a specific initiative, the vision and stakeholders may be narrowed, but the practice remains the same. Clearly articulate the company’s vision, strategic objectives, goals, and desired outcomes within a certain time period.

Answer the questions below to elaborate on your values and provide a north star that guides all activities on the strategic roadmap:

• Why does your business exist?
• What pain points do your products or services address?
• What are your organization’s primary objectives and goals?
• Where does your organization see itself in the short, medium, and long term?

There is no need to get too specific or technical. These questions should be general in nature and intended to keep an eye on the bigger picture.

Create a SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis assesses an organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as the external opportunities and threats, informing strategic decision-making. A SWOT analysis can help an organization visualize its brand positioning and offering.

Strengths

Evaluate your organization’s internal attributes, resources, and capabilities that give it a competitive advantage. From its workforce and brand reputation to proprietary technology and processes, its strengths are weapons to exploit and build upon during the execution of initiatives.

Weaknesses

Assess your organization’s internal limitations, challenges, and areas for improvement. These may include obsolete technology, financial constraints, skills gaps, inefficient processes, and poor brand reputation. When leaders understand what can disrupt execution, they can develop strategies to overcome them as part of the strategic roadmap.

Opportunities

Analyze potential external opportunities for growth or improvements. These may include emerging markets, competition vulnerabilities, evolving customer trends, market gaps, or new technologies that could help your organization achieve its goals.

Threats

Determine external factors that could hinder your organization’s ability to execute its initiatives. These may include changing consumer preferences and regulations, increased competition, economic downturns, and supply chain disruptions.

Conduct a competitor analysis

Creating a competitor analysis during your strategic roadmapping exercise involves researching your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, activities, and positioning to determine how your organization compares and opportunities to excel. Using your own research and analysts’ reports, analyze the qualities of direct and indirect competitors and use those insights to inform your strategy, such as:

• Products and services
• Tarification
• Part de marché
• Distribution channels and marketing strategies
• Customer reviews and brand reputation

If needed, consider conducting a market analysis to better understand the needs of your target market. This will help you when it comes to identifying the strategy you want represented in your strategic roadmap.

Set goal-oriented milestones

Setting goal-oriented milestones in your strategic roadmap will help you get the most out of your strategic plan.

The process involves analyzing and setting smaller goals for various periods with milestones and metrics that will measure performance.

Assign each milestone a deadline based on factors such as resource capacity, project dependencies, and external constraints. Align them with the organization’s strategic priorities and ensure they directly contribute to achieving the initiatives. Finally, continuously review performance and adjust milestones and your dynamic roadmap accordingly.

Consider pairing your strategic roadmap with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for better strategic alignment.

OKRs are a goal-oriented framework that you can use to set goals and measure your progress toward achieving those goals over a defined period of time. When used together, OKRs and roadmaps help establish short and long-term alignment by answering the following questions:

• What do we want to achieve?
• Why are these goals a high priority?
• How do we get from A to B?
• When should we plan this work, and in what order?

Learn more about how you can use OKRs at the strategy level by reading our eBook titled “Connecting the Dots Between Strategy and Delivery.”

There are multiple initiatives that can benefit from the improved direction, communication, accountability, and resource allocation a strategic roadmap brings. Here are a few examples:

Transformation numérique

For enterprises with legacy technology due for modernization, a strategic roadmap will help them digitally transform internal processes and operations to improve efficiency, agility, and competitiveness.

The roadmap outlines phased goals and milestones, allowing specific timeframes to identify and implement enablement technologies, execute migrations, train employees, and monitor systems.

Product launch

For product-focused organizations, a strategic roadmap provides a structured framework for product teams to plan, execute, and optimize a product launch. The roadmap breaks down the product launch process into manageable phases, milestones, and tasks, ensuring all stakeholders understand their responsibilities and work together to meet deadlines.

Customer experience enhancement

For organizations with the initiative to improve customer satisfaction, retention, and acquisition, roadmapping identifies customer pain points throughout their journey and opportunities for improvement across touchpoints. Teams can use the roadmap to align efforts and launch customer-centric programs, implement employee training programs, and track progress.

Strategic roadmap software automates many aspects of the roadmapping process and ensures alignment between work, resources, and desired outcomes.

It connects planning to delivery and delivery to outcomes. Accessible to all stakeholders, the roadmap serves as a single source of truth to ensure everyone is on the same path, working collaboratively to reach common strategic objectives, no matter their roles and responsibilities.

Planview’s Strategic Portfolio Management solution includes dynamic roadmaps that enable leaders to translate strategic plans into actionable roadmaps more easily.

Unlike static strategic roadmapping tools that immediately age, Planview’s dynamic roadmaps are built to adapt to change. Planners can leverage the software to determine how specific changes impact resources, timelines, and budgets, fostering more informed decision-making.

This direct line of sight virtually eliminates development effort misalignment and waste. Planview Roadmaps is the “blueprint” to show the organizational goals and the directions to get there.

Spreadsheets, sticky notes, emails, and other disconnected “systems” do little to align work with strategic priorities. Instead, these dynamic roadmaps ensure the company spends its time, money, and labor on work that achieves those priorities versus sinking those resources into work that doesn’t move the needle.

Access this on-demand webinar and learn how Planview Roadmaps can bridge the gap by connecting strategy, planning, and delivery across all teams in your organization.