Digital Strategy ConsultingCharles Chen
Customized your own digital strategy roadmap!
A digital strategy roadmap is a planning document that outlines what goals your organization is trying to achieve with new technology, and what digital initiatives need the undertaking to achieve your objectives.
The well-designed digital strategy roadmap that I created defines a vision for digital transformation by articulating a clear understanding of where you are today, where you want to be tomorrow, and how you are going to get there. It visualizes the future of a product or service into a picture that shows both current and future state. It is the crossroads between business and technology strategy and often, product strategy as well.
The following multidisciplinary activities combine together to produce a digital strategy roadmap:
Design Thinking (Service Design & User Experience Design)
Research (UX, Competitor, Analytics, Marketing)
Business Analysis Technology Analysis (Assessment, Solution Architecture, Procurement...)
Content Strategy (Content Analysis & Information Architecture)
Project / Product Management (Timelines, Budgets, Resourcing...)
The most common factors with different level of impact and any relevant dependencies or considerations can be gauged by:
Cost
Let’s say your digital strategy realizes a new CMS and CRM is required, but there isn’t a budget for both. Your roadmap may need to consider how to roll-out a new CRM first with a temporary CMS solution, secure more budget in a future phase, then continue on to long-term CMS solution.
Level of Effort
Consider the level of effort required. How long and how many resources will each discrete initiative take? What is needed in terms of internal or external resources? Level of effort pertains to cost, resourcing and timeline.
Timeline
How long will each initiative take? What are the milestones, what order or sequence should they take, and (roughly) when do you expect completion?
When moving to the activity schedule, it is essential to identify the predecessors and dependencies. For example, you can’t migrate to a new database before you have gone through the database selection process. In this case, the “selection process” will the predecessor to “database migration”. This needs to be included in your roadmap plan.
What's included
Digital Strategy Roadmap
Background Goals & Objectives
Current State vs. Proposed
Future State Roadmap Plan
Digital Strategy Roadmap: Background Goals & Objectives
Start by reminding everyone what problems you are aiming to solve. Why are we here? Recap the broad vision of what you are trying to achieve, the core objectives that need to be met, and some background context on the current state.
Key parts to include:
Problem Statements: Why are we doing this?
Key Objectives: The vision you are building towards
Research Insights
Solution Outcomes and Roadmap Initiatives
Current “Before” State vs. Future “After” State
For the current “before” state, the assessment will include all the different components currently involved in the process / system / service. This includes all the features and existing functions, plus how those features and functions work together and/or connect in the context of the broad system or organization.
For example, if I am building a digital strategy for your organization’s web presence, your current state would likely cover:
Existing tools and platforms (e.g. CMS, CRM, a marketing automation tool, eCommerce, etc)
Existing integrations with third-party platforms or systems (e.g. social media platforms)
Any automation or additional channels that piggyback off the site (e.g. a newsletter)
Possibly departments or third party vendors who are responsible
For your future “after” state, I will include the components you are keeping, re-organizing, and adding to show how objectives will be met. If you are redesigning a website and adding in some marketing automation, e-commerce, or a mobile app, I would include that process / system or service within the ecosystem of connections.
At this stage, both current and future states represent “zoomed out” views, and look at the broader system as a whole.
Roadmap Plan
The last component is the supporting detail and description of the roadmap plan itself. Include a thorough explanation of each initiative and strategy around how you are going to achieve it.
Add charts, documentation, or data that supports the definition of current and future state, include all the KPIs and success metrics as well as intended outcomes. This helps with optimization, enabling measurement against benchmarks and supporting decisions to pivot.
Charles's other services
Contact for pricing
Tags
Figma
Gmail
G Suite
Notion
Trello
Business Analyst
Product Manager
Project Manager
Service provided by
Charles Chen Taipei City, Taiwan
Digital Strategy ConsultingCharles Chen
Contact for pricing
Tags
Figma
Gmail
G Suite
Notion
Trello
Business Analyst
Product Manager
Project Manager
Customized your own digital strategy roadmap!
A digital strategy roadmap is a planning document that outlines what goals your organization is trying to achieve with new technology, and what digital initiatives need the undertaking to achieve your objectives.
The well-designed digital strategy roadmap that I created defines a vision for digital transformation by articulating a clear understanding of where you are today, where you want to be tomorrow, and how you are going to get there. It visualizes the future of a product or service into a picture that shows both current and future state. It is the crossroads between business and technology strategy and often, product strategy as well.
The following multidisciplinary activities combine together to produce a digital strategy roadmap:
Design Thinking (Service Design & User Experience Design)
Research (UX, Competitor, Analytics, Marketing)
Business Analysis Technology Analysis (Assessment, Solution Architecture, Procurement...)
Content Strategy (Content Analysis & Information Architecture)
Project / Product Management (Timelines, Budgets, Resourcing...)
The most common factors with different level of impact and any relevant dependencies or considerations can be gauged by:
Cost
Let’s say your digital strategy realizes a new CMS and CRM is required, but there isn’t a budget for both. Your roadmap may need to consider how to roll-out a new CRM first with a temporary CMS solution, secure more budget in a future phase, then continue on to long-term CMS solution.
Level of Effort
Consider the level of effort required. How long and how many resources will each discrete initiative take? What is needed in terms of internal or external resources? Level of effort pertains to cost, resourcing and timeline.
Timeline
How long will each initiative take? What are the milestones, what order or sequence should they take, and (roughly) when do you expect completion?
When moving to the activity schedule, it is essential to identify the predecessors and dependencies. For example, you can’t migrate to a new database before you have gone through the database selection process. In this case, the “selection process” will the predecessor to “database migration”. This needs to be included in your roadmap plan.
What's included
Digital Strategy Roadmap
Background Goals & Objectives
Current State vs. Proposed
Future State Roadmap Plan
Digital Strategy Roadmap: Background Goals & Objectives
Start by reminding everyone what problems you are aiming to solve. Why are we here? Recap the broad vision of what you are trying to achieve, the core objectives that need to be met, and some background context on the current state.
Key parts to include:
Problem Statements: Why are we doing this?
Key Objectives: The vision you are building towards
Research Insights
Solution Outcomes and Roadmap Initiatives
Current “Before” State vs. Future “After” State
For the current “before” state, the assessment will include all the different components currently involved in the process / system / service. This includes all the features and existing functions, plus how those features and functions work together and/or connect in the context of the broad system or organization.
For example, if I am building a digital strategy for your organization’s web presence, your current state would likely cover:
Existing tools and platforms (e.g. CMS, CRM, a marketing automation tool, eCommerce, etc)
Existing integrations with third-party platforms or systems (e.g. social media platforms)
Any automation or additional channels that piggyback off the site (e.g. a newsletter)
Possibly departments or third party vendors who are responsible
For your future “after” state, I will include the components you are keeping, re-organizing, and adding to show how objectives will be met. If you are redesigning a website and adding in some marketing automation, e-commerce, or a mobile app, I would include that process / system or service within the ecosystem of connections.
At this stage, both current and future states represent “zoomed out” views, and look at the broader system as a whole.
Roadmap Plan
The last component is the supporting detail and description of the roadmap plan itself. Include a thorough explanation of each initiative and strategy around how you are going to achieve it.
Add charts, documentation, or data that supports the definition of current and future state, include all the KPIs and success metrics as well as intended outcomes. This helps with optimization, enabling measurement against benchmarks and supporting decisions to pivot.
Charles's other services
Contact for pricing