Resumo

Innovation drives organizations to develop managing activities in order to continue providing improvements even with fewer resources. Aligned to Competitive Intelligence and Technology Intelligence, the Technology Roadmaps has been adopted by companies, governments and other organizations, as a resource to predict and manage the future of technologies, products and markets, reflecting an evolutionary organization of technology. With the roadmaps, the impact of changes are assessed with expert judgment, setting a vision of potential threats and opportunities.

The objective is to study the Technology Roadmaps concepts, from design to implementation. Subsequently, by the analysis of a successful example of Technology Roadmap (NASA), possibilities and advantages of this important resource in Technology Intelligence are explored.

Major technological changes and innovation have fueled global trade and the evolution of firms. The Technology Intelligence, based on Competitive Intelligence concepts, emerged to identify opportunities and help companies to be in the frontier of their innovation, avoiding surprises by the technical advances of competitors and defining steps to achieve outcomes and goals. The Technology Roadmaps helps companies to answer many questions related to introduction of new products/processes and correlating these to new marketing/organizational methods, by planned and strategic actions.

Based on a careful literature review, we used secondary sources to establish analyses since the appearance of the first examples and articles published, with improvements and learnings provided as the gaining of popularity of the TRM. In order to make a connection between theory and practice, we used the Case Study approach, with the holistic design, where just one case (NASA) was selected. The purpose of this methodology approach is to illustrate certain literature topics within a practical evolution and investigates the TRM concepts within its real-life context.

NASA is a great example about how to develop and implement the TRM. With the Office of the Chief Technologist, a department created to conduct strategy and leadership in order to integrate NASA’s technology development and innovation activities, the roadmapping process is developed and monitored by the usage of major concepts handled in the literature review. The agency also creates new concepts in the roadmapping process, as the Technology Candidate Snapshots, providing more complete information about each technology and relating the actions and goals with the technology needed date.

The Technology Roadmaps emerging shows how innovation concepts are changing the organizational perspective. The Technology Intelligence resource provides the achieving of goals and outcomes, by planned and strategic initiatives. The NASA case study showed a leading example of the TRM implementation on the technology strategy and how this resource is aligned with innovation concepts, providing a smart decision-making and collaboration between different areas of the company. The TRM is a tendency to transforming business, driving growth and enhancing competitiveness.

Main references: PHAAL, R. Technology roadmapping - A planning framework for evolution and revolution. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, v. 71, n. 1–2, p. 5–26, 2004. YIN, R. K. Estudo de Caso: Planejamento e Métodos. 4ª ed. Porto Alegre: Bookman editora, 2015. INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY - USA. Energy Technology Roadmaps - A guide to development and implementation. p. 32, 2014. Office of the Chief Technologist. Retrieved July 11, 2017, from