Strategic Foresight in the Digital Transformation Era: Roadmapping Inspired by Design Thinking

Despite its usefulness as an innovation tool for strategic foresight, conventional roadmapping has several limitations in practice, such as linear tendency, poor articulation of value, difficulty and delay in implementation, and implicit certainty and persistent prejudice, as identified in existing literature. These limitations are further exacerbated in the digital transformation era due to radical and disruptive changes that fundamentally alter systems, calling for more innovative roadmapping practices for strategic foresight to navigate transformative changes. This study examines the potential of integrating design thinking principles and tools with roadmapping to address these challenges. An improved roadmapping process is proposed, by combining conceptual theories from a literature review of strategic roadmapping and design thinking. This process model is tested and further developed via an in-depth case study of an airline company undergoing digital transformation, based on participant observation. Feedbacks and verification interviews demonstrate the benefits of the new roadmapping approach, which incorporates principles of design thinking (e.g., human-centeredness, creative reframing, learning by doing, and divergence and convergence) and relevant tools (e.g., persona, customer journey map, and ideas menu) that are effective for forward-oriented strategic decision making under uncertainty. The proposed roadmapping process can improve firms' strategic foresight by providing informed and practical guidance for systematically designing, organizing, and executing roadmaps in rapidly evolving and highly disruptive environments of digital transformation. This study advances the literature on strategic roadmapping, and enables academic researchers to further explore how design thinking principles and tool-kits can enhance firms' foresight processes and capabilities in managing digital transformation.