Re: Technology Roadmap

["George F. Hayhoe III" <george -dot- hayhoe -at- SRS -dot- GOV>]

Cynthia Schwartz asked about technology roadmaps. I just finished work on a
roadmap to our computing architecture, and it has a pretty simple
structure.

Following the introductory chapter are seven chapters, each of which
addresses a computing techonlogy area (advanced networks, networked
systems, information warehouse, client/server, multimedia, electronic
office, and object-oriented technology). Each of these chapters includes an
introduction which describes the state of the technology within our company
and our destination. This is followed by a series of infrastructure,
administrative, cultural, process, technology, and miscellaneous
milestones--specific tasks which must be completed to get us to the
destination (for example, "Install Ethernet/FDDI network trunks"). For each
milestone, we indicate responsible organization, sponsoring organization,
initiation date, status, anticipated duration, resource considerations,
discussion, action items, dependencies (other milestones), and benefits.

The document also includes a bibliography, glossary, and summary list of
milestones.

The result is a very helpful document for both computing experts and
executives who need to understand exactly how we're going to reach our
technology destinations. We tried to avoid technobabble as much as possible
so that an informed nonexpert could follow the document.

Hope this is helpful to Cynthia and others.