Colloquia

Summary

Engineering consultancy firms have to deal with digital innovations. To keep up with the competition, they have to balance the exploration and exploitation of innovations. Planning brings a structured approach to the execution of the two activities, balancing them. The method of technology roadmapping (TRM) can be used to plan the exploration and exploitation of innovations.

TRM supports its users with the integration of technology into a strategic business context through strategic and long-range planning. TRM has been used in service-oriented industries, however, these TRM methods are not applicable in engineering consultancy to develop an innovation strategy. Therefore, a new TRM method had to be designed for engineering consultancy firms to develop their innovation strategy. 

The designed TRM method consists out of an initiation and a workshop phase. In the initiation phase, the workshops are customised to the organisation. In the workshop phase through four workshops, data about the why?, what?, how?, and when? of organisation’s innovation strategy are processed by a team with expert knowledge of the industry. 

The method was designed in two consecutive but different design cycles. In the first design cycle, seven requirements were introduced based on the stakeholders’ goals. The TRM method was designed by comparing six TRM methods from literature along six criteria that would aid with designing a TRM method compliant with the requirements. One requirement could not be verified during verification as the designed TRM method lacked operation details; this called for a second design cycle. 

In the second design cycle, the designed TRM method was enriched with operational details based on literature resulting in an hourly workshop planning and detailed description of the tools used during the workshops. Therefore, the enriched TRM method could be validated in an advisory group at Sweco. The validation was successful as all requirements were met during the implementation of the designed TRM method. As a result, the research goal to design a TRM method that allows engineering consultancy firms to develop their innovation strategy, was achieved.