Scenarios and roadmapping - how to navigate an uncertain future

Scenario planning and roadmapping are both well established processes for exploring possible futures. Roadmapping for technology foresight provides a framework for investigating technology developments, interrelationships and critical timescales. However it is increasingly important when new technologies and consumer adoption co-evolve that paradigm changes in the wider social and economic environment are taken into account. A strength of scenario planning is in exploring social and economic factors and hence scenarios can provide the futures context for a roadmapping exercise. Both processes are often used in group work modes over days or months, which allows for stakeholder consensus to develop. This paper describes how scenario planning and roadmapping were combined within a workshop to gather a wide range of external and internal inputs and to challenge organisational thinking. The paper discusses how the process was achieved in one day, the benefits of this arrangement and also its limitations and how to mitigate them