Align Your IT Roadmap with Strategic Goals

This level of alignment ensures your IT investments and initiatives directly contribute to your organization’s overall objectives, maximizing value and fostering a competitive edge.

An effective IT roadmap bridges your company’s strategic vision and the technological capabilities needed to achieve it. It provides a clear direction that helps with:

• Prioritizing projects
• Allocating resources efficiently
• Making informed decisions about technology investments

This article explores the importance of aligning your IT roadmap with strategic goals. Learn how to create an IT roadmap and discover the best practices for driving alignment that ensures your organization’s long-term success.

A strategic IT roadmap supports your business strategy by driving changes and improvements to your technology. These changes could be:

• Driving innovation
• Reducing costs through better efficiency
• Improving decision-making through better data quality

Your strategic IT roadmap is key for outlining your IT department’s goals, direction, and initiatives, and then connecting those plans to the company strategy.

Why you should align your IT roadmap with strategic goals

The role and function of the IT organization continue to increase in significance as every company on earth has become, at its core, a technology company. Modern IT organizations are undergoing a massive shift from being perceived as cost centers, to becoming innovation centers that can drive the company’s direction.

A high-performing IT department has the power to drive business growth, improve efficiency, and create competitive advantages through innovation.

That’s why a growing number of enterprises are exploring emerging technology, such as:

• Artificial intelligence
• Blockchain
• Machine learning

And they’re using this technology to improve efficiency and productivity, enhance services, and optimize their business models.

Your strategic IT roadmap is instrumental in informing good decision-making within your IT department. Having a clear understanding of how your IT projects fit into the greater strategic picture makes it easier to:

• Prioritize or deprioritize work based on what delivers strategic value
• Allocate your constrained resources to initiatives that align with strategy

This will help ensure that your IT department’s potential is realized.

IT Roadmap vs. Product Roadmap

Before we cover the benefits of IT roadmaps, how to build them, and dive into some roadmap examples, let’s examine the differences between an IT roadmap and a product roadmap.

The primary difference between IT roadmaps and product roadmaps is the audiences for which they are intended.

Product roadmaps communicate the vision for the customer-facing product – new product releases, feature updates, bug fixes, and other things that will affect how end users will experience the product and company.

The primary audience for a product roadmap is the company at large, as well as any of its stakeholders. Some companies even publicly share their product roadmaps, so customers can see what features and changes they must look forward to in the upcoming months or years.

By contrast, IT roadmaps communicate the vision for the company’s internal systems and processes – and are intended for internal audiences only: The IT organization and its leaders, any internal teams affected by their work, and executive leadership.

Within an IT organization, there might be a need for unique roadmaps at different levels of the organization.

• An enterprise IT roadmap that guides the direction of the entire IT organization
• An IT program roadmap that communicates the vision and direction of a specific program
• An IT project roadmap that aligns the goals and direction of a specific project with the broader organizational goals

For the majority of this article, we will discuss enterprise IT roadmaps unless specified otherwise.

Facilitating enterprise IT roadmaps with project portfolio management (PPM) can:

• Help to ensure sustained strategic alignment
• Optimize resource allocation
• Enhance portfolio governance
• Improve risk management
• Increase business agility

Let’s look at how facilitating an enterprise IT roadmap with the right PPM solution can bring significant value to your organization.

Alignment with strategic objectives

Facilitating IT roadmaps with PPM means that everyone in IT can understand how their work rolls up to broader organizational objectives. This can help teams prioritize projects that have the greatest impact on strategic goals, and deprioritize work that does not align with (or works against) key objectives.

Optimized resource allocation

Project portfolio management provides visibility into resource allocation and availability across all projects in the organization. Integrating enterprise IT roadmaps with PPM allows for more effective resource allocation across projects. That way, you can direct resources to the priorities that further your strategic goals.

This helps to ensure that the highest priority work receives the necessary resources and investment.

Enhanced portfolio governance

IT organizations are able to enforce governance policies and best practices across the entire project portfolio. This helps to promote transparency, accountability, and compliance, while reducing risk.

Improved risk management

Organizations gain greater visibility into risks associated with IT initiatives, such as:

• Technology disruptions
• Resource constraints
• Security issues
• Budget overruns

Integrating IT roadmaps with PPM provides the tools and processes for identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks across the project portfolio.

Increased agility

PPM provides organizations with the necessary mechanisms to quickly prioritize, reprioritize, and reallocate resources based on changes in the business environment.

Pairing PPM with IT roadmaps increases agility by allowing organizations to adapt their IT initiatives and strategies in real time.

Building an IT roadmap is no small feat.

Although there are many different approaches to doing so, most roadmaps contain the same essential elements:

• Objectives
• Current state and future vision
• A timeline
• Key initiatives and success metrics

Below is a big-picture overview of the steps required to build an IT roadmap:

1. Understand business objectives

   Start by gaining a clear understanding of what your business wants to achieve and how your IT and technology can support that.

   Meet with stakeholders from across the enterprise to align on the organization’s overall business objectives, strategic priorities, and key initiatives.

2. Assess your current state

   Evaluate the present state of your technology and its capabilities through a SWOT analysis by looking into your current:

   • Strengths
   • Weaknesses
   • Opportunities
   • Threats

   A SWOT analysis can help you clearly define areas for improvement and investment in your organization’s IT infrastructure, systems, processes, and capabilities. This provides a comprehensive view of the present state of your technology capabilities, as well as serving as the foundation for your future IT and technology vision.

   By identifying potential weaknesses, enhancements, and advancements, you can strategically plan for a future state that aligns with your organization’s goals and objectives.

3. Define your IT strategy

   The next step is to define your IT strategy. This is your strategic goals, priorities, and objectives that will drive business growth and create value.

   When defining your strategy and the value it delivers, make sure it fits into the context of broader organizational goals.

4. Identify and prioritize initiatives, then allocate resources

   List the initiatives and projects needed to achieve your defined strategic goals. Examples of these include:

   • Implementing new technologies
   • Upgrading infrastructure
   • Improving operational efficiency

   Once you’ve identified your initiatives, it’s time to prioritize them. Here are two ways you can prioritize effectively:

   • Rank initiatives based on what you must have, should have, and could have
   • Look at the value each initiative brings and weigh that against the total cost (time, resources, money) it will take to complete the initiative

   After prioritizing your key initiatives, the next step is to allocate resources to support their implementation.

5. Define success

   How will you measure the success of your initiatives? Define the metrics that determine whether you continue, pause, or increase investments in your initiatives.

   These include:

   • Project milestones
   • Budget adherence
   • IT performance benchmarks
   • ROI
   • Customer satisfaction and more

   Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are effective in measuring success because you can use them as leading indicators. OKRs help you measure your progress toward achieving your goals, telling you whether you’re on track or falling behind. Use OKRs to identify success, shortcomings, and instances where you need to rethink your plan.

Learn more about how you can create OKRs and use them alongside your IT roadmap by reading our eBook titled “Connecting the Dots Between Strategy and Delivery.”

Review and iterate when needed

Remember, creating your IT roadmap isn’t a one-time project.

Technology is constantly changing, and as a high-performing enterprise, you must continue to evolve alongside it.

Regularly review and update your roadmap to reflect changes in priority, market conditions, technology trends, and other factors. Keep channels of communication open with stakeholders and project teams so the roadmap accurately reflects current initiatives.

We discussed earlier that there can be different levels of roadmaps within an organization:

• Enterprise IT roadmaps
• Program IT roadmaps
• Project IT roadmaps

There can also be IT roadmaps for specific functions.

The following IT roadmap examples show how security, technology, governance, and IT operations initiatives can be managed and communicated through an IT roadmap.

IT security roadmap example

A security IT roadmap outlines current and upcoming initiatives to enhance the organization’s cybersecurity and mitigate security risks. It outlines security vulnerabilities, threats, and compliance requirements.

The IT security roadmap includes initiatives to strengthen security controls, such as conducting security audits, establishing incident response capabilities, providing security training, and implementing security technologies.

This can include areas like:

• Risk assessment and security governance
• Identity and access management
• Data protection and encryption
• Incident response and management
• Compliance and regulatory alignment

IT technology roadmap example

A technology IT roadmap outlines initiatives related to the lifecycle of technology assets, including hardware, software, platforms, and infrastructure. It defines the timing and sequence of technology upgrades, migrations, and retirements.

This can include areas like:

• Infrastructure modernization and cloud adoption
• Application rationalization and digital transformation
• Data management and analytics
• Collaboration and communication tools
• IT service management (ITSM), governance, and compliance
• Vendor and supplier management

IT governance roadmap example

A governance IT roadmap defines the strategic initiatives and actions necessary to establish and improve IT governance within an organization. The governance IT roadmap ensures that IT investments, resources, and activities:

• Align with business objectives
• Comply with regulatory requirements
• Mitigate risks effectively

This can include areas like:

• Governance framework and structure establishment
• Performance measurement and reporting
• Compliance and regulatory alignment
• Stakeholder engagement and change management
• Continuous improvement and audit process

IT operations roadmap example

An IT operations roadmap outlines initiatives related to managing and optimizing IT operations within an organization.

This can include areas like:

• IT service management (ITSM) and infrastructure management
• Security, compliance, and disaster recovery
• Automation and performance optimization
• Capacity planning
• Vendor management

Choosing the right IT roadmap software ensures your roadmap is easily shareable, consumable, and modifiable. When evaluating potential solutions, consider the following:

• Integration capabilities with existing tools and systems
• The user interface’s intuitiveness and customization options

Look for software with real-time collaboration features and advanced visualization tools to communicate your roadmap effectively.

Other key features to look for include:

• Scalability and flexibility to accommodate growth
• Robust data security and compliance measures
• Reliable vendor support and an active user community

By carefully evaluating these factors, you can select IT roadmap software that meets your current needs, supports your organization’s long-term strategic goals, and provides a positive return on investment.

How Planview’s dynamic roadmaps overcome static challenges

Planview’s dynamic roadmaps address the maintenance challenges associated with traditional, static roadmaps typically shared with stakeholders and business leaders.

Planview Roadmaps’ dynamic nature means real-time updates to the plan are reflected as they happen. Changes in project status, priorities, or resources are immediately visualized on the roadmap, maintaining accuracy and shortening lag time.

Seamless integration with Planview’s Project Portfolio Management solution means your IT roadmap updates as the plan changes. This eliminates manual data entry and reconciliation, saving time and reducing errors.

Planview’s solution also offers customizable views that cater to different stakeholders’ needs, making it easy to tailor the roadmap for various audiences.

Notable features include:

• Collaborative capabilities that improve engagement and facilitate better planning and execution
• Better adaptability through accurate, up-to-date data that empowers leaders to measure progress and respond to changes as challenges arise
• Driving alignment across project and product teams by connecting Planview Roadmaps to all of Planview’s solutions, as well as a library of 60+ workflow and project management tools

With Planview, your IT roadmaps can seamlessly integrate with Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) capabilities, fostering full alignment with organizational strategy.

This comprehensive integration creates a unified ecosystem for project and portfolio management, where projects and initiatives on the roadmap are directly linked to strategic objectives.

The integration with PPM allows for optimized resource allocation across the entire portfolio, preventing overcommitment or underutilization. Financial data from PPM systems is incorporated into the roadmaps, giving a holistic view of project costs and ROI. This financial integration is crucial for making informed decisions and justifying investments.

Risk management is enhanced through this integration, as PPM risk assessments are reflected in the roadmap, allowing for proactive risk mitigation strategies. Performance tracking is also improved, with KPIs and metrics from PPM incorporated into the roadmap, providing real-time insights into project and portfolio performance.

The integration enables comprehensive scenario analysis, considering impacts across the entire portfolio. This feature is particularly valuable for strategic planning and decision-making, allowing organizations to evaluate different courses of action based on a complete picture of their project landscape.

Lastly, the unified reporting from roadmaps and PPM systems facilitates clear communication of progress and alignment to all stakeholders. This transparency helps build trust and ensures that everyone understands how individual projects contribute to the overall organizational strategy.

By leveraging Planview’s dynamic roadmaps and their integration with PPM capabilities, organizations can maintain up-to-date, strategically aligned IT roadmaps that accurately reflect current priorities, resources, and market conditions, driving better decision-making and project success.

Planview’s IT roadmaps seamlessly integrate with project portfolio management (PPM) capabilities, facilitating complete, sustained alignment with organizational strategy.

By combining PPM with dynamic roadmaps, Planview empowers IT organizations to move effectively and efficiently while ensuring that they support the organization’s overall strategic goals.

Maximize your IT impact and drive better business outcomes. Access this on-demand demo to see how Planview Roadmaps connects your IT strategy, planning, and delivery by acting as the single source of truth for your IT investments and initiatives.