Developing an organisational roadmap

“We will never have the resource we need to do things at the speed that we want so there always needs to be a compromise. So, we will be continually working to prioritise what changes we can push and what we need to hold.”
Professor Judy Williams, pro vice chancellor, education and students, Queen’s University Belfast

There comes a point in the digital transformation process when you need to translate your vision into practical plans. An organisation-wide roadmap can provide an overview of how the organisation intends to turn the strategic vision into reality and give clear outlines of how the plan affects different departments, teams and practices. It can articulate the timelines, investment and measures of success. At the other end of the scale, more specific action plans can focus on particular areas, departments or initiatives to capture the detail, ownership and progress towards goals.

“Everyone thinks digital transformation is about big things, but what we’ve found is that you can ‘do’ digital transformation at a smaller scale too. We have access to technologies that just need us to use them differently or more effectively to lead to transforming the organisation. It doesn’t have to be a £300,000 investment in a system… it can be little business improvements too. If a new division or faculty feels they are working slightly differently than they were and if they buy into it and feel they’re getting more out of it, then they can see the benefits.”
Michelle Turner, Steve Bowden, deputy director learning innovation services, director learning and information services, University of Chester

The process of creating roadmaps or action plans can inform or feed into the development of a digital transformation strategy or help with reviewing and adjusting an existing strategy. It can also be used to consider digital aspects of all existing organisational strategies.

Action plan template

We offer a series of practical templates for organisations to produce detailed actionable plans to enhance their digital maturity. The templates prompt organisations to reflect on current maturity levels, to identify actions, KPIs, investment, responsible owners, relevant stakeholders, supporting resources and documents and assign priority levels. Each template is a companion document to both the framework and the maturity model and is structured in the same way. It can be used at organisation-wide level to produce a roadmap and/or at faculty/school/department level to produce action plans.

The template is best used as a collaborative online document that reflects your specific plans and context. It can be broken down and adapted as appropriate for each organisation. The table includes blank spaces to be completed as an action plan is developed.

It uses drop-down lists to record maturity level, progress and priority (which links to drop-down lists proposed in the maturity model document). The second column includes original elements from the framework for digital transformation and the numbering of rows directly correlates to the rows in the maturity model.

Download the maturity model action plan and roadmap (docx)
Download the maturity model action plan for organisational digital culture (docx)
Download the maturity model action plan for knowledge creation and innovation (docx)
Download the maturity model action plan for knowledge development (docx)
Download the maturity model action plan for knowledge management and use (docx)
Download the maturity model action plan for knowledge exchange and partnerships (docx)
Download the maturity model action plan for digital and physical infrastructure (docx)

Download our overview document to see suggestions for ways to use the action plan template:

Download the maturity model for digital transformation: overview (docx)
Download the maturity model for digital transformation: overview (pdf)