Figure 2.2 Strategic Roadmap Graphic
This image shows a road with a series of signs along it. At the road's beginning is the sign labeled Foresight, and at
the end is a sign labeled Feedback. All the signs are, in order from beginning to end
- Foresight
- Competitive Assessment
- Organizational Strengths and Weaknesses
- Benchmarking
- Strategic Performance Standards
- Functional Expertise
- Vision Quest
- Stakeholder Interfaces
- Market Needs
- Product/Service and Process Development
- Feedback
When you click on any of the signs, a description/definition appears beside the road map. These descriptions/definitions are as
follows:
- Foresight
- The orderly development and anticipation of the possible and probable changes in the markets in which the organization would
like to provide products or services. Performance in these desired markets are regularly affected by changes in the political,
economic, social, legal, and technological forces associated with these markets. Foresight aims at predicting future events,
demand, or streams of innovation that are relevant to a firm’s operations.
-
- Competitive assessment
- A detailed examination of the strengths, weaknesses, and likely future actions of competitors in the firm’s industry, including
their product or service portfolio, organizational processes, and market performance.
- Organizational strengths and weaknesses
- Assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the enterprise, particularly regarding the ability to deliver competitive products
or services through the use of existing organizational processes.
-
- Benchmarking
- Review of the performance of competitors and other organizations that are considered the best in the industry, to determine
what operational and strategic abilities enable them to perform at such consistently high levels. For example, who are the acknowledged
leaders in project management processes and new product development? What philosophies and processes enable them to maintain
industry leadership?
- Strategic performance standards
- Identification, development, and dissemination of the elements required establishing strategic performance standards and guiding
the use of resources in the enterprise. These standards include the organizational mission, objectives, goals, strategies, and
design; individual and collective roles; leader and follower styles; supporting systems; and the quality and quantity of organizational
resources.
-
- Functional expertise
- The ability to develop and maintain centers of excellence in the disciplines needed to support operational and strategic initiatives.
- Vision quest
- The ability to envision what the future should be for the enterprise – that is, the general direction the enterprise should
follow to become what organizational leaders want it to be.
-
- Stakeholder interfaces
- Discovery, development, and maintenance of common boundaries with the people and organizations that have a vested interest
in the products or services and processes provided by the enterprise. Customers and suppliers are the principal stakeholders
with whom close working relationships need to be maintained.
- Market needs
- Assessment of the probabilities and possibilities of the marketplace, including the potential for products and services for
markets that do not currently exist.
-
- Product and service and process development
- The use of project teams to focus cross-functional and cross-organizational resources to conceptualize, design, develop, and
initiate continuous improvements in existing products and services and organizational processes, as well as the development of
new initiatives in such products and services and processes.
- Feedback
- Ongoing insight into how well the strategic road map elements are being developed and implemented in positioning the organization
for its future purposes.