Customization of Roadmap: Human-in-the-Loop Topic Modelling Approach

Since the first application of technology roadmapping in the late 1970s to support integrated product-technology planning in consumer electronics, roadmapping concepts and methods have been widely extended to general strategy and policy applications across diverse areas of technological domains and innovation contexts. This is mainly due to the communication benefits associated with roadmapping to support effective decision-making, along with its flexible and adaptable nature to suit the particular needs of individual organizations in diverse contexts. While this demands careful design of the roadmap structure that is appropriate for different purposes and needs of roadmapping, there is a lack of specific guidance supporting the experts for effective customization of roadmap framework. Recently, however, an increased degree of customization is required in designing roadmap structures and frameworks, due to extended scopes and needs of roadmapping in a wide variety of application contexts, where different meanings of the word ‘roadmap’ are used. In this regard, this paper examines how various meanings and uses of roadmapping are applied across diverse thematic contexts with different focus of issues, by analyzing scientific publications on ‘roadmap’ using a proposed human-in-the-loop topic modelling approach. It is expected that such analyses will provide roadmapping practitioners greater insights to design appropriate roadmap structures that can support effective dialogue and communication across diverse contexts where roadmapping is increasingly being used.