Driving The Street Process F 174060

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mx G00174060
Driving the STREET Process for Emerging Technology and Innovation Adoption
Published: 30 March 2010 Analyst(s): Jackie Fenn
The most successful innovators define and follow a process to ensure that critical activities and best practices are addressed (e.g., prioritizing technology options). This is an important way to counter the Hype Cycle effect, where an organization is pulled into adopting a technology or management trend because of market pressure and the sense that "everyone's doing it," rather than through strategic decisions based on corporate strategy and goals. Establishing an emerging technology process helps an organization to become selectively aggressive that is, to adopt early only those technologies or other key innovations that will have a significant business impact.
Key Findings
Following a technology and innovation adoption process is a best practice in driving appropriate investment decisions and avoiding hype-driven, reactive mistakes. Gartner's STREET process for emerging technology and innovation adoption consists of six stages scope, track, rank, evaluate, evangelize and transfer. The STREET process is appropriate for formal use by an emerging technology group or other innovation function, or as a checklist of key activities by business leaders, innovators or other individuals involved in innovation adoption.
Recommendations
Follow an emerging technology adoption process. The STREET process can be adopted, or adapted as appropriate, to form an organization's own emerging technology adoption process. Make emerging technology adoption someone's job. Defining a process is the first step, but identifying who will follow that process is also key to success. In some cases, this involves establishing a full-time group focused on emerging technologies. In others, emerging technology may be a part-time responsibility of the architecture group, a committee, or a key
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individual such as the CTO or CIO, or it may be distributed to domain experts or business leaders.
Network, network, network. The most critical success of any technology adoption process hinges on its leader's ability to build bridges to the business units, end users and other parts of the IS organization. Like any other essential activity, this requires dedicated time and planning, even for informal networking. Tie technologies to business need. In presenting opportunities for technology to the business, take the additional step of showing how the technology will impact the work people do and the roles they have, as well as the company's products and services. Make prioritization explicit. Using a visible and graphical prioritization process, such as a Hype Cycle, radar screen or priority matrix, provides an objective basis and justification for investment decisions. The prioritization process helps decision makers inside and outside the emerging technology group (ETG) avoid becoming overly enamored of a technology at the expense of others that may be more worthwhile. Plan the route to deployment. A common failure point is when an evaluation team recommends proceeding with a technology, but nobody picks up on the recommendation. Before expending significant effort on investigating and evaluating a technology, the evaluation team should ensure that a business champion or other key management advocate will drive the project forward on a positive recommendation. Start transfer early. Projects "thrown over the fence" to a business unit or the IS organization almost never find fertile ground. To promote the transfer of promising technologies, the emerging technology process must involve relevant staff during evaluation activities and at key decision points.
Table of Contents
Analysis.................................................................................................................................................. 4 1.0 The Role of Emerging Technology Planning................................................................................ 4 1.1 Why Plan for Emerging Technologies?..................................................................................4 1.2 Defining Emerging Technology..............................................................................................5 1.3 The Importance of Process...................................................................................................5 2.0 Overview of the STREET Technology Adoption Process............................................................. 6 3.0 Scope: Establishing the Context for Technology Innovation........................................................ 9 3.1 Top Down: Strategic Direction............................................................................................ 10 3.2 Bottom Up: Business Issues...............................................................................................11 3.3 Out of the Box: Visioning and Scenarios............................................................................. 12 3.4 Enterprise Personality: Type A, B and C Characteristics......................................................13 4.0 Track: Collecting the Candidates.............................................................................................. 13
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4.1 Technology Scan................................................................................................................14 4.2 Technology Profiles............................................................................................................ 15 5.0 Rank: Make the Prioritization Explicit........................................................................................ 19 5.1 Factors for Ranking Technologies.......................................................................................19 5.2 Spider Charts..................................................................................................................... 20 5.3 Hype Cycles....................................................................................................................... 21 5.4 Radar Screens....................................................................................................................26 5.5 Priority Matrix......................................................................................................................27 5.6 Technology Scorecards...................................................................................................... 30 5.7 Balancing the Portfolio........................................................................................................32 5.8 Taking Action Based on Ranking Results............................................................................33 6.0 Evaluate: The Deliverable Is a Decision..................................................................................... 33 6.1 Planning the Evaluation Project...........................................................................................33 6.2 What to Evaluate: Benefits, Risks and Costs.......................................................................34 6.3 How to Evaluate: Prototypes, Pilots and Champion/Challenger...........................................37 6.4 Technology Evaluation Documents..................................................................................... 40 6.5 Making the Decision........................................................................................................... 41 7.0 Evangelize: Spreading the Word............................................................................................... 42 7.1 Marketing........................................................................................................................... 42 7.2 Education........................................................................................................................... 43 7.3 Networking......................................................................................................................... 43 7.4 Driving Change................................................................................................................... 44 8.0 Transfer: Making It Happen...................................................................................................... 45 8.1 Transferring Knowledge Through People............................................................................ 45 8.2 Consulting to Operational Development..............................................................................46 9.0 Seven Imperatives for Successful Emerging Technology and Innovation Adoption.................... 46 Recommended Reading.......................................................................................................................47
List of Tables
Table 1. Technology Maturity Levels..................................................................................................... 16 Table 2. Example Benefits of a Technology Candidate......................................................................... 35 Table 3. Example Risks of a Technology Candidate..............................................................................36
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List of Figures
Figure 1. The STREET Process for Emerging Technology and Innovation Adoption................................ 8 Figure 2. Government TRL Meter......................................................................................................... 17 Figure 3. Spider Charts for a Candidate Technology.............................................................................20 Figure 4. The Hype Cycle..................................................................................................................... 22 Figure 5. Gartner Hype Cycle for Vehicle Information and Communications Technologies, 2007...........24 Figure 6. Two Key Questions for the Hype Cycle.................................................................................. 25 Figure 7. Radar Screen With Information Extracted From Gartner's Hype Cycle for Vehicle Information and Communications Technologies, 2007............................................................................................26 Figure 8. Gartner's Priority Matrix for Vehicle Information and Communications Technologies, 2007.... 28 Figure 9. Priority Matrix Adoption Profiles............................................................................................. 29 Figure 10. Actions Resulting From a Priority Matrix Assessment........................................................... 30 Figure 11. Rating Scorecard................................................................................................................. 31 Figure 12. Technology Transfer from ETG to IT or Business-Unit Staff.................................................. 40
Analysis
1.0 The Role of Emerging Technology Planning
1.1 Why Plan for Emerging Technologies?
Early adoption of emerging technologies can create or maintain an organization's competitive edge by spearheading growth and driving internal efficiencies. To ensure that the technologies are selected based on organization value, rather than the latest trend hyped in the marketplace, organizations are realizing that they need to formalize their emerging technology management activities. Technology and other innovations such as management trends will eventually find its way into the workplace, with or without planning but companies that fall back on a reactive, "as needed" approach in their adoption of new technologies run the risk of making costly, personality-driven choices, rather than strategic decisions that align with their larger corporate strategy and goals. The increasing invasion of technology into a business's processes, services, products, channels and business models is making it more important than ever to manage the adoption process well. Benefits achieved by companies that take a deliberate and planned approach to adopting emerging technologies include:
Identifying strategic opportunities that combine technology "push" (that is, through technology tracking) with business "pull" (that is, based on business context and goals).
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Prioritizing options, which ensures more intelligent selection of the technologies most likely to have a major positive impact. Coordinating and leveraging disparate activities related to emerging technology across the company, enabling organizations to build on successes and avoid redundancies. Educating staff to become skilled in the risk management associated with introducing new technologies, including stopping investments if appropriate.
Note that we focus in this research on the adoption of technology, rather than the invention of new products and services. While internal creativity is essential to an organization's well-being (see "Managing Innovation: A Primer, 2009 Update" for a detailed examination of this topic), equal attention should be given to the far more common and equally challenging issue of deciding which externally generated innovations and most technologies fall into this category an organization should adopt, and when.
1.2 Defining Emerging Technology

Gartner defines "emerging technologies" as those technologies that are not yet mature in the marketplace and so entail higher-than-average risk. This typically means that the technologies are at the earlier stages of their life cycles and have been adopted by less than 20% of their target population. The level of risk decreases gradually as more and more organizations adopt, and the body of experience and best practices grows, although the risk of not achieving anticipated benefits, or of expending more resources than planned, is never completely eliminated. For some organizations, emerging technology is defined as "anything our organization isn't using yet." This definition is certainly defensible to the degree that the initial adoption of a technology entails a higher risk than enhancements and upgrades, particularly for less aggressive companies that are not prepared to manage risk well. In discussing emerging technologies, organizations need to be clear whether they are dealing with a technology that is just immature within their own organization, which may involve a moderate amount of risk, or whether it is also immature in the overall marketplace, which may entail a higher level of risk. For the purposes of this research, we use a fairly expansive definition of emerging technology, but pay particular attention to issues that arise when deciding which technologies are worth adopting while they are still immature in the marketplace. The processes and best practices also apply to other types of innovation (e.g., management trends), although we mostly refer to technology innovation in this research.
1.3 The Importance of Process

Developing an effective approach to adopting emerging technologies requires two major elements:
1.
Following a Process: The most successful innovators define and follow a process to ensure that critical activities and best practices are addressed (e.g., prioritizing technology options). This is an important way to counter the Hype Cycle effect, where an organization is pulled into adopting a technology because of market pressure and the sense that "everyone's doing it"
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(see "Understanding Gartner's Hype Cycles, 2009"). Establishing an emerging technology process helps an organization to become selectively aggressive that is, to adopt early only those technologies that will have a significant business impact. It also allows it to capture and analyze more innovations in a sustainable, repeatable way, potentially leading to greater advantage to the enterprise than an ad hoc approach. It also raises the profile of IT as the leader in this area, a role that will increase in strategic importance with the increasing role of technology in a business's services, products and processes. However, it is important to note that blindly following process can drive down the level of innovation rather than increase it, so a careful balance of process and agility is needed. In this research we describe a process for emerging technology adoption consisting of six key activity stages scope, track, rank, evaluate, evangelize and transfer (STREET).
2.
Making It Someone's Job: Without dedicated effort, emerging technologies can slip into the realm of "I'll do it when I have time" in the face of more immediate deadlines, which can undermine the potentially huge impact of appropriate emerging technology adoption. Defining a process is the first step, but identifying who will follow that process is also key to success.
Most large companies have attempted to formalize the emerging technology adoption process in some manner. In some cases, this involves establishing a full-time group focused on emerging technologies. These groups typically have names such as "emerging technology group (ETG)," "advanced technology group," "technology R&D" or "technology strategy and innovation." In others, emerging technology may be the responsibility of the architecture group, a committee, or a key individual such as the CTO or CIO, or it may be distributed to domain experts or business leaders. This function is rarely outsourced, even in organizations that are heavy users of IT services, because of the key role that emerging technology plays in competitive advantage and the requirement for a deep understanding of the business context. In this research, for simplicity, we refer primarily to ETGs and ETG staff when discussing activities and best practices associated with the emerging technology adoption process. However, the recommended approaches apply equally to less structured emerging technology planning activities and to business leaders and individuals who need to determine which technologies are most relevant to their needs.
2.0 Overview of the STREET Technology Adoption Process

The goal of emerging technology planning is to manage the evaluation, introduction and deployment of the emerging technologies that will most effectively further the company's strategic objectives. While every company has its own particular approach to achieving this goal, Gartner has identified a set of activities scope, track, rank, evaluate, evangelize and transfer (STREET) that represent best practices in the planning and adoption process. STREET is suitable for an ETG to use or adapt in defining its own internal process, or for business leaders, innovators or other individuals involved in innovation adoption to use as a checklist of key activities:
Scope. The scope stage provides business focus and context for emerging technology investments by identifying what organizational purposes should be served, such as supporting corporate objectives and key initiatives or overcoming business process bottlenecks. Scope also involves determining how aggressive the organization is and wants to be with respect to
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emerging technologies, including the acceptable level of risk. For business-unit- or team-level adoption decisions, the scope will be focused on the needs and objectives of the unit. Activities include competitive analysis, visioning and scenario building, and identifying business problems and opportunities.
Track. The track stage involves seeking out relevant technologies those that match the organization's defined scope for innovation through emerging technology from a broad range of sources. Tracking activities include understanding the position of a technology is in its maturity cycle and identifying potential business applications and champions for the technology. The ETG should capture the results in a way that can be communicated to others in the organization and that lends itself to further decision making. The track stage drives organizations to be proactive about finding worthwhile emerging technologies. Rank. In this stage, the ETG considers alternative candidates by ranking the technologies and selecting those worthy of immediate attention. The aim is to identify those technologies that look most likely to bring significant benefit to the organization within acceptable levels of risk. This involves asking probing questions about the potential of each technology and, where possible, comparing the value of multiple technologies against each other. A virtue of ranking multiple technologies at the same time is that it highlights the trade-offs that need to be made in terms of resource allocation that is, if one person's pet technology is pursued, those resources (people and money) are not being spent on some other, perhaps more worthy, technology. Ranking is a key, but often overlooked, step in emerging technology adoption. Evaluate. In the evaluate stage, ETGs investigate each of the top-ranked emerging technology candidates where a lack of knowledge or understanding still prevents them from deciding whether to move forward. Activities include paper and hands-on investigations, as well as prototyping and piloting, to understand each technology's value, and eliminate or at least identify remaining risks and uncertainties. The evaluation stage builds in regular evaluation and decision points, and the end-result stage is a decision whether or not to move forward. Evangelize. In many cases, the people who identify the value of a new technology do not have the direct authority to tell others that they must adopt it. For each technology an ETG recommends pursuing, it therefore needs to inspire, educate and involve other people to obtain the cooperation and support of all those who will influence the successful adoption of the technology by the business. Marketing, educating, networking and engaging others take place throughout the adoption process, but their importance is most apparent after the evaluation phase. The ETG must overcome organizational resistance by inspiring key decision makers to appreciate the technology's business impact. Transfer. In its role of driving technology innovation, the ETG at some point needs to transfer responsibility for a new technology to another department or project that will take the technology to full-scale deployment, so that the ETG can move on to new territory. This requires more than transferring knowledge (for example, teaching people how to use a development tool). In most cases, the only way technology transfer succeeds is by transferring people that is, having knowledgeable staff work alongside those who must learn the skills required to deploy the technology. For successful transfer, the players ultimately responsible for driving the
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technology forward must be involved in earlier stages of the STREET process in particular, the evaluation activities. Technology planning and adoption are not a strictly sequential, linear process, so STREET reflects the continuous activities and multidirectional feeds among the various stages. Figure 1 shows the principal flows and interactions within the STREET process.
Figure 1. The STREET Process for Emerging Technology and Innovation Adoption
Scope
Innovation Candidates
Evangelize
Track
Rank
Evaluate
Transfer
Source: Gartner (March 2010)
Understanding the scope and context for innovation is an essential prerequisite for any emerging technology activity. The scope activities drive knowledge of what types of technologies to track. Track is often the most active and resource-intensive of the first three stages. It is a continuous activity, although many organizations conduct a periodic, usually annual, technology scan. In contrast, an organization's scope its mission, strategy plans, etc. is likely to be relatively stable over the course of a year or longer, with changes triggered by major new business initiatives, external forces such as regulations or competitive actions, or an annual strategic planning exercise. On occasion, a particularly disruptive technology that could change the current scope of the organization (for example, a technology that enables a new business model) will come to light during the track stage. Because a company's scope should itself be subject to innovation over time, this type of technology a "game changer" also needs to be accommodated by the process. If the game changer is determined to have merit after appropriate evaluation and consideration, typically by the most senior executives in the organization, it may cause a permanent change or expansion in the organization's scope, as shown in Figure 1 by the arrow from the transfer back to the scope stage. The technology candidates identified by the track stage feed into the rank stage, where the scope is used to assess and prioritize the potential of each candidate. Ranking can occur for each technology candidate one by one or by periodically comparing a set of candidates with each other. Assuming that the right kind of information is collected during tracking, rank is an essential but typically brief activity. At the end of the rank stage, one candidate or a set of prioritized candidates will have been judged worthy of further action.
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The right side of Figure 1 shows the flow of the final three stages evaluate, evangelize and transfer that apply to each technology candidate that is selected during the rank stage. The four arrows extending from the evaluate stage show four possible decision outcomes: proceed to evangelize and transfer, re-evaluate, return to track or drop. In general, the activity flow is from evaluate to evangelize to transfer, but we have shown a direct link between evaluate and transfer to highlight that these two stages often do (or should) overlap considerably. As noted, evangelize and transfer activities actually need to begin earlier in the process, at the latest toward the end of the evaluate activities. STREET ends at the point where a technology innovation becomes a part of the mainstream project development or management process. It does not cover the later stages of full deployment and rollout. That does not imply that there are not still significant challenges to be overcome during rollout (see "Toolkit Tactical Guideline: Adopting New Technology Within an Enterprise Technical Architecture" for a discussion of potential issues in adopting new technology). Moreover, rolling out the technology is only one stream of multiple activities that must take place for an organization to realize the benefit of the new technology. Other activities might include changing incentive structures (for example, to reward people for collaborating when a collaboration tool is introduced), changing management structures or changing procedures and process officially, any of which may involve working with other areas of the business such as HR or marketing. The STREET process is described further, along with many case studies and best practice examples, in the book "Mastering the Hype Cycle: How to Choose the Right Innovation at the Right Time" by Jackie Fenn and Mark Raskino (Harvard Business Press, 2008). Like most management methods, the STREET process works best when adapted to the specific culture and context of each adopting organization. The rest of this research highlights approaches and best practices that ETGs can apply to each of the STREET stages.
3.0 Scope: Establishing the Context for Technology Innovation

The main purpose of the scope stage of the emerging technology adoption process is to provide focus for technology investments. Novice emerging technology planners commonly begin with tracking activities, without a clear idea of the business objectives and priorities the technology will support. Alignment is a two-way flow: Technologists must understand and prioritize according to the business objectives, but also must expect to influence the direction of the company by helping business planners understand how technology will shape business models and processes. Understanding the business priorities is particularly critical in the high-risk environment of emerging technology adoption. To make the additional risk inherent in adopting an immature technology worthwhile, the potential benefits of a successful deployment must be correspondingly high. Focusing on high-impact and strategic business issues may be counterintuitive for some technology planners, who may be tempted to keep a low profile by selecting a simple or noncritical function until the technology is proven. However, the risk inherent in new technologies can only be mitigated if the company applies them to meaningful business processes. The scope can be defined from four major perspectives:
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A top-down perspective looking at the organization's strategic direction A bottom-up perspective driven by specific business issues An "out of the box" perspective imagining new ways of doing business Consideration of the organization's enterprise personality with respect to risk that is, how much risk is the organization willing to embrace to achieve its goals.
3.1 Top Down: Strategic Direction

The top-down perspective involves identifying the high-level corporate goals and strategic planning initiatives of the company, including any specific, near-term objectives (such as improved customer service or faster product development). It also incorporates an understanding of broader industry directions and market dynamics that will have an impact on future business and process models. The way in which strategic planning is discussed and conveyed varies significantly between companies and over time. It is a dynamic management discipline, with new ideas hitting the management literature every year, from classics such as C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel's core competencies introduced around 1990, to more recent approaches such as value curve analysis, as described by S. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne in their book "Blue Ocean Strategy." Even companies that lack a formal strategic plan usually have a mission, set of goals or statement of core competencies that act as a focus for investment of resources. Successful ETG managers seek out these goals and objectives, frequently through informal "corridor" dialogues with the company's strategic planners and executive management. Two particularly useful ways to tap into strategic perspectives to help focus emerging technology innovation are value disciplines and persistent business needs:
Value disciplines were identified by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema in "The Discipline of Market Leaders." Treacy and Wiersema contend that there are three approaches or values an organization can use to differentiate itself in the market product leadership, such as Apple and Nike; operational excellence, such as Ryanair and Costco; and customer intimacy such as Neiman Marcus and GE Healthcare (which offers hospitals a full range of training and management programs for its medical devices). Value disciplines are a particularly useful concept because even if an organization's executives haven't explicitly stated their value discipline, most managers can discuss and agree on what their company's value discipline is. They also highlight the fact that creating an innovative product is not the only pathway to success, but that innovating in service delivery or process efficiency can also drive industry leadership. "Persistent business needs" is a term coined by Mark MacDonald in Gartner's Executive Program report, "Linking Needs, Technology and Innovation" from 2004. These are activities that an organization is always striving to improve, such as "shorten product development cycles" for a product company, or "leverage assets to a new channel" for a media company. Some persistent business needs, including growing revenue, cutting costs or improving safety are universal across industries. When a persistent business need is elevated in importance
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because it matches an organization's current strategy or ongoing value discipline, it becomes a useful way to focus emerging technology activities. For example, an organization with a value discipline of customer intimacy may pay particular attention to the persistent business need of increasing the number of touchpoints per month per customer. As with value disciplines, most people inside an organization or department can agree on what their persistent business needs are. In some organizations, the ETG explicitly reiterates these goals and priorities in documents or presentations to lay out the assumptions against which it will pursue its emerging technology planning agenda. This enables misunderstandings to be addressed early in the life cycle (and, in some cases, acts as the only written resource for such information). In using strategic planning as a way to focus its efforts, the ETG will often end up leading or inspiring the organization with respect to the potential value of emerging technologies. Where possible, emerging technology planners should be formally involved at key points of strategic business planning through their participation in relevant committees or planning meetings. This is a highly effective way to identify the common objectives of the company and to help decision makers understand the potential impact of technology. For particularly large or geographically dispersed enterprises, this role may need to be delegated among multiple members of the emerging technology team, with different staff members responsible for different business units.
3.2 Bottom Up: Business Issues

The bottom-up perspective highlights business problems or process bottlenecks that may be alleviated through IT solutions. Representatives from the business units are often in the best position to identify where this type of opportunity occurs. Although the business-unit-led approach to focusing emerging technologies is somewhat more reactive in its nature than strategy-led, an ETG should seek out business-unit executives for regular or periodic brainstorming activities to facilitate the flow of information. Cross-functional high-level committees should be included where appropriate (for example, by having emerging technologies become a regular agenda item). Visits to remote business units are important for gaining a firsthand perspective of the problems. If a specific area of the business is likely to be experiencing rapid change or opportunity in the near future, it may be worth the ETG applying particular attention and resources to that area. For example, one head of an ETG for a bank spent six months in its payment department to understand this complex area to determine the opportunities and impact of electronic payments and micropayments. Bottom-up opportunities for innovation may be triggered by specific events (e.g., a physical move) by a public relations or financial crisis, by regulatory pressures, or by a ripple-down effect of strategy or persistent business needs that result in specific business-led initiatives. For example, the move of many companies and industries into emerging markets, where local needs are specific and different from established markets, is a growing opportunity for innovation and the application of emerging technologies.
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In some cases, the best way to address a business issue or bottleneck may not be through an emerging technology, or even through IT at all. ETG staff may, at times, need to dive into "common sense" solutions to help business units make progress. The ETG staff often brings the appropriate problem-solving approach and outside perspective. Even though this is not the primary function of the ETG, it can be worth spending time on such problems to enhance the group's credibility and value. Business units, managers and executives may also make specific project requests to the ETG, often to evaluate specific products (such as mobile devices). While these may not be particularly strategic or high-impact opportunities, it is again important to acknowledge these requests and support them to the extent possible to maintain good relationships and credibility.
3.3 Out of the Box: Visioning and Scenarios

The "out of the box" perspective encourages creative thinking and deliberately expands the space of future opportunities for the company. Approaches include scenario planning, as pioneered by Global Business Network (see "The Art of the Long View," by Peter Schwarz; "Three Economic Futures and What They Mean for IT") and future "day in the life" storytelling (see "A Day in Your Life, 2028"). Another approach is to identify accepted industry constraints and examine how they might be overcome. For example, in 2007 UPS introduced a delivery intercept service, destroying the decades-old constraint in mail delivery that a package, once mailed, could not be retrieved until it arrived at its destination. Since a strategic perspective can be difficult to attain amid day-to-day pressures and priorities, a session dedicated to strategic brainstorming or scenario planning can be an effective way to facilitate longer-term thinking. Such sessions are typically a one- to two-day off-site event, often featuring an invited speaker with an industry or technology perspective. The audience is drawn from a cross-section of business and IS functions to attain a diverse set of perspectives. A professional facilitator is frequently invited to maintain a cooperative and nonjudgmental atmosphere that encourages full participation. The agenda includes understanding and brainstorming possible industry directions, technology candidates and internal applications, and prioritizing potential application or technology initiatives. Because these off-site sessions can be costly, they are usually performed infrequently (for example, every one or two years) at the launch of a major initiative to reevaluate technology positioning and priorities. Smaller-scale versions may be performed internally much more frequently some ETGs have weekly brainstorming sessions within the group. The output from visioning sessions can feed into annual planning activities, or can become a rallying point for a specific initiative. The ETG in one insurance company created a video showing an integrated contact center from the perspective of the agent and the customer, based on the results of a "future vision" activity. The video was picked up by senior management and used in executive meetings to create a common vision and direction for the company. One of the challenges of working with speculative activities such as visioning, scenarios and constraint-busting is to keep them alive and in people's minds after the scenario planning or visioning activity is over. Scenario planners often define "indicators" to track, which show whether a scenario is becoming more or less likely as events unfold. But the planners still need to remember to check the indicators periodically an ETG can be a catalyst in keeping this activity alive. In most
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cases, the value of these out-of-the-box activities is to generate a burst of creative thinking that may turn into a more tangible initiative or focus for innovation and emerging technologies.
3.4 Enterprise Personality: Type A, B and C Characteristics

In planning and managing emerging technology adoption, it is important for an organization to understand its own tolerance for risk with respect to innovation that is, its enterprise personality type. Gartner distinguishes three enterprise personality types with respect to technology adoption:
Type A (aggressive) organizations are pioneers that consciously and aggressively adopt highrisk strategies to gain potentially high rewards and competitive advantage. To handle higher risk, Type A organizations have developed the values, culture, processes, practices, and management skills needed to take risks intelligently and handle inevitable failures constructively. A 2008 survey showed that 20% of organizations consider themselves Type A. Type A organizations are more likely than others to have a formal, full-time ETG. Type B (mainstream) organizations are willing to support moderate risk taking in the adoption of innovation and have the corporate skills and culture to support such initiatives. Approximately 54% of organizations are Type B. Type C (conservative) organizations are cautious adopters of anything new. They are neither willing nor prepared to handle high levels of risk. Approximately 26% of organizations selfidentify as Type C.
Pockets of Type A, B and C behavior can occur in various parts of the same organization; however, most employees can identify one dominant category that drives their corporate IT behavior. This behavior is not necessarily the result of a conscious corporate decision, but rather a consequence of how much importance the organization's executive management assigns to technology in achieving the company's business goals. Some industries have a higher-than-average proportion of Type A organizations (such as financial services and telecommunications) compared to other, lessaggressive industries (such as retail or insurance). Understanding the organization's enterprise personality is a key element of the scope stage trying to deliver Type A technology initiatives into a Type C organization is rarely successful. Organizations can move toward a more aggressive personality, but this needs to be driven from the highest levels in the organization. Expect to push forward only one style at a time (for example, from a Type C to a Type B), because most organizations cannot absorb too much change at one time.
4.0 Track: Collecting the Candidates

Most ETGs, and many other IT leaders, view technology tracking as their core function and enthusiastically seek out new technologies. However, not all are as effective as they could be at assessing the technologies in terms of their relevance to the strategic business initiatives, processes and bottlenecks identified in the scope stage. They can get seduced by the technology itself, rather than by the customer or business need. Another challenge is capturing the information in a form that can be shared with others in the organization and that lends itself to further decision making.
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Two key activities in successful technology tracking are:

Undertaking a broad scan for candidates with relevance to the organizational scope Creating brief technology profiles to record and share the results
Tracking is a continuous activity, because people are constantly exposed to new ideas. In addition, some organizations conduct a deliberate review periodically typically once a year. This review forces people to make tracking activities a priority so that the organization can gather a critical mass of technology candidates. By targeting a specific time period, people are more able to allocate larger amounts of time, energy and enthusiasm to the exercise than with general background tracking. It is often timed to coincide with other strategy, planning, and budgeting activities so that selected technologies can be funded to the next stage of evaluation. However, it is also important to create a way to "fast track" promising candidates that require more rapid attention and evaluation than a six- or 12-month review.
4.1 Technology Scan

A technology scan seeks out a broad range of sources for ideas on technologies and applications that might be relevant to the business. Since "knowing what you don't know" is one of the most challenging aspects of technology planning, the possibility of overlooking a potentially key technology is an ongoing fear among ETGs. The aim at this stage is to gather as broad a set of ideas as possible selection and prioritization comes later. Sources include published information in business, industry and trade press, online information feeds, and favorite blogs or websites. Conversations with key vendors, customers, other business partners, or venture capital organizations can yield new ideas, as can more-formal visits to university, government, or industrial research labs. Paid sources include technology tracking services from industry analysts (such as Gartner's Hype Cycles and other technology tracking deliverables), consultants or conferences that target leading-edge technologies and applications. Competitive intelligence is one of the best places to look for inspiration as to what is possible with new technologies. Organizations can examine how their competitors are using technology, but also look beyond their own industries at comparators (companies of similar size or with similar aspirations) for ideas that might be transferable to their own situation, particularly if they aspire to be early adopters. Some ETG managers try to promote the discovery process by ensuring that each member of the group spends a certain amount of time (for example, 15% to 20%) on unfocused (in other words, non-project-related) technology tracking activities. Involving other internal resources is also important. Even larger ETGs (those with more than eight people) are required to understand, to some degree, an exceedingly large range of relevant technologies. To improve the quality of the technology scans, organizations can divide the work across several groups and among interested individuals by assigning part-time responsibility for monitoring various "cuts," such as:
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Information sources (for example, vendor labs, colleagues in other business units and geographies) Application areas (for example, CRM, security, application development, business intelligence) Technology areas (for example, unified messaging, cloud computing, collaboration, human computer interaction)
One way to draw deliberately on a broad population of contributors is through an "innovation challenge," which has become a popular way for companies to find innovative solutions from across, or even beyond, their corporate boundaries. Unlike the suggestion boxes of an earlier management era, which collected discrete individual contributions, in-house innovation challenges aim to provide an environment where employees collaborate and build on each other's ideas. Those originating or contributing to a successful idea often receive the option to work on the resulting project, which can significantly enhance their visibility in the company. External innovation challenges open up participation to customers and partners, or to communities of experts and contributors around the globe. For example, in Procter & Gamble's (P&G's) "Connect + Develop" model, the company publishes its top 10 needs (its scope) and asks for solutions using an open innovation model.
4.2 Technology Profiles

For each potentially interesting technology identified during a technology scan, the ETG should develop a technology profile to document the investigation. The initial profile may be very brief just a note of the technology, its definition and potential areas of relevance within the business. As the investigation progresses, more information about the technology, and its status, risks, benefits and applications can be added to the profile. One challenge in creating a useful profile is in determining what level of granularity to track. In some cases, technology candidates may present themselves as very specific new products and services. While these are often the easiest innovations to spot, because they are so tangible, it is also important to think about the deeper capability or trend. When faced with an innovative product, particularly a highly hyped one, it is important to remember that early entrants into a market are often not the ones that dominate in the longer term. In general, the capability level (e.g., virtual worlds or microblogging), rather than a specific product (e.g., Second Life or Twitter), is a more appropriate level of technology to consider in moving through the STREET process. In addition to the individual profiles, some organizations create and document higher-level categories for a set of related innovations. For example, the topics of radio frequency identification (RFID), geographic information systems, Google Earth and location-based services could be collected under a theme of "location intelligence." A key part of the technology profile is the assessment of the technology's current maturity. Table 1 shows an example set of maturity stages, in this case the ones that Gartner uses in creating technology profiles for Hype Cycle entries (see for example the entries in "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2009"). In practice, the stages of mature mainstream, legacy and obsolete are not included in tracking activities focused on new technology adoption. They may, however, be valuable
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in discussing which technologies should be retired or replaced (see "Introducing the IT Market Clock").
Table 1. Technology Maturity Levels Maturity Level Embryonic Emerging In labs Commercialization by vendors Pilots and deployments by industry leaders Status Products/Vendors None First generation High price Much customization Second generation Less customization
Adolescent
Maturing technology capabilities and process understanding Uptake beyond early adopters Proven technology Vendors, technology and adoption rapidly evolving
Early mainstream
Third generation More out of box Methodologies Several dominant vendors
Mature mainstream Legacy
Robust technology Not much evolution in vendors or technology Not appropriate for new developments Cost of migration constrains replacement Rarely used
Maintenance revenue focus
Obsolete
Used/resale market only
Another example is the technology readiness levels (TRLs) used by many different areas of the government as a common way to categorize a technology innovation's maturity. There are nine levels, with Level 1 being the least mature and Level 9 being fully proven technology (see Figure 2). A key feature of TRLs is that technologies are formally designated as having progressed from one level to the next.
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Figure 2. Government TRL Meter
System Test, Launch and Operations System/Subsystem Development Technology Demonstration Technology Development Research to Prove Feasibility Basic Technology Research
TRL 9 TRL 8 TRL 7 TRL 6 TRL 5 TRL 4 TRL 3 TRL 2 TRL 1
Some organizations document the maturity of the technology within the organization rather than more generally in the marketplace for example, with stages such as "tracking," "investigating," "piloting" and "deploying." Technologies with multiple distinct applications within the company such as speech recognition for the call center versus speech recognition for dictation in the legal department should have a profile for each application because costs, benefits, suppliers and other aspects may differ significantly. A typical technology profile includes:

Name and definition of technology Business application Where would this be used within the organization? Benefit to organization What are the anticipated business returns for the application (for example, reduced costs, increased revenue or profits) and impact (positive, from successful exploitation, or negative, from late or missed implementation)? Will the technology change business processes (incrementally or drastically), affect problem types (enable previously
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intractable functions to be performed), or upset the competitive dynamics of an industry? Will the impact be confined to one business unit, or can it be leveraged across the company? (See Section 6.2.1 of this research for a detailed list of potential benefits.)
Potential business champion Is there an enthusiastic and influential champion for selected business applications? Activity inside organization Is there already investigation or adoption of this technology that can be leveraged? What is the current status: tracking, proof of concept, pilot? Competitors' adoption Is the company losing a competitive advantage by not adopting the technology? Level of maturity What is the level of robustness and stability of the technology, and how fast is it progressing? This may include an assignment to one level of a scale (e.g., TRLs). The determination of maturity incorporates such factors as the existence of accepted standards, the stability and legitimacy of vendors in the market, and academic and research initiatives in the area. Level of risk What factors would inhibit the adoption of this technology? Risk factors to consider include not only technology issues (for example, frequent crashes, low accuracy, slow performance), but also disruption of the IT architecture and organizational processes, and the risk of nonadoption or resistance by users, any of which would mean that the organization might fail to meet its ROI objectives (see Section 6.2.2 of this research for a list of common risk factors). Approximate costs What level of investment is required to bring this technology into production in the application? Factors to be considered include costs of acquisition, development, integration, maintenance, staff and subsequent process and architecture changes (such as performance upgrades required). The cost may be presented as a range for the best and worst cases, depending on how the technology progresses. Leading vendors Which firms are shipping products with this capability? Is the technology available from established vendors? Graphics and images Some companies have found that the simple act of adding images to a technology profile for example, supplier logos or a screen shot makes the profile much more likely to be read, particularly in printed form.
Some organizations publish the active emerging technology profiles on the company intranet so that all parts of the organization can see the status of, and even contribute to, technology tracking activities. Ideally, the profiles are living documents that are added to and updated as the ETG identifies new candidates or uncovers new potential uses. In reality, most companies focus on consolidating the candidates in an annual or semiannual update as part of the IT and business planning cycle. This also helps the process of synthesizing multiple threads into coherent, relevant opportunities.
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5.0 Rank: Make the Prioritization Explicit

The objective of the rank stage is to select the subset of technologies, initiatives and project ideas that look most likely to bring significant benefit to the company. Ranking candidates need not take significant amounts of an ETG's time, but it is a critical activity in avoiding the personality-driven or hype-driven technology investment decisions that an emerging technology planning process seeks to avoid. Ranking can assess a single candidate in absolute terms against a predetermined set of objectives or goals, or can compare candidates in a group against each other. The individual ranking approach is useful when selection decisions are distributed throughout the organization. It also tends to be used in autonomous and well-funded ETGs that have the time, capacity, and independence to pursue a number of candidates before justifying their choices externally. Individual ranking involves answering a set of questions about a technology to see whether it passes relevant thresholds of value and likelihood of success. If the questions are thoughtfully addressed, they provide a sanity check against hype effects and pet projects. The group ranking approach is the stronger way to counter Hype Cycle influences, because looking at the relative value of candidates helps prevent being swept away by a single candidate. It is a particularly useful approach when an individual leader, team, or committee must recommend which candidates to pursue and needs to justify its decision. Graphical ranking on a single visual representation is a particularly useful way to draw out assumptions about the relative merits of a set of candidates, as shown in Sections 5.2 through 5.5 of this research.
5.1 Factors for Ranking Technologies

Relevant factors for ranking and prioritizing technologies are numeric or scale versions of the information collected in the technology profile, such as:
Scale of benefit. How does the technology contribute to the objectives identified in the scope stage? Will the benefits be transformational, high, moderate or low? The higher the better. Scope. Will the technology be adopted companywide, at a local or regional level or within a specific function or department? The broader the better. Current maturity. What is the current level of robustness and stability of the technology? The farther along the maturity scale, the better, although some ETGs deliberately scan for early stage opportunities. Time to value/maturity. How long will the technology take to reach mainstream adoption? Note that this is different from current maturity two technologies may both be currently "emerging," but one will mature in five years and the other will still be "emerging" for the next 10 years. The faster a candidate is progressing toward maturity and predictable value, the more urgently it should be examined.
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Risks. Are there major risk factors associated with performance, integration, penetration, or payback? For example, for large-scale changes what is the expected level of resistance that might affect user penetration? The lower the risk, the better. Costs. What are the estimated costs for development, integration, adoption and rollout? Higher costs are less desirable. For an otherwise attractive candidate, they make detailed evaluation even more crucial, to ensure that the value justifies the high cost. Sponsors/champions. Are there enthusiastic and influential people associated with a candidate? If so, it is more likely to succeed. Current activity inside the company. Is there already investigation or adoption of a similar or related technology that can be leveraged? If experience and skills are already available, the technology is more likely to be adopted smoothly.
5.2 Spider Charts

A spider chart provides a simple graphic view of how well an emerging technology candidate satisfies objectives. It can help teams or individuals quickly analyze a candidate against six to 10 key factors. The chart has several spokes or radials, and each radial represents a factor expressed as an objective (e.g., high benefit, broad scope, low risk). Low satisfaction of an objective is plotted closer to the center of the chart. High satisfaction is plotted near the end of the radial, the outside of the diagram. Figure 3 shows a hypothetical technology candidate mapped against the eight factors listed in Section 5.1.
Figure 3. Spider Charts for a Candidate Technology
Benefit Scope Benefit Scope
Sponsors/ Champions
Sponsors/ Champions
Candidate Innovation
Current Maturity Current Activity
Candidate Innovation
Current Maturity
Cutoff Threshold
Current Activity
Low Costs Low Time to Value
Low Risks
Low Costs Low Time to Value
Low Risks
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Groups of candidates can be compared visually by preparing a spider chart for each one and setting them side by side. The most promising will stand out visually as a larger colored or shaded area. Some organizations define thresholds below which a technology candidate will not be selected for evaluation one that is too immature, too costly for current budgets or below a desired level of benefit. The spider chart makes the relationship between a technology and the thresholds easy to visualize. The right-hand spider chart in Figure 3 shows how a hypothetical technology fails to achieve the objectives for costs and current activity, indicating that financial and resourcing needs are likely to be a challenge for this candidate.
5.3 Hype Cycles

In performing the prioritization process, it is also important to identify, and thus avoid, the commonly occurring wrong reasons for which companies adopt technology. The high level of hype surrounding technology in the marketplace is one of the factors that frequently drives companies to a poorly timed adoption of technology (typically too early). The role that hype plays in the early stages of a technology's life cycle can be represented by the Hype Cycle model of emerging technologies, introduced by Gartner in 1995 and developed further in "Mastering the Hype Cycle: How to Choose the Right Innovation at the Right Time," by Jackie Fenn and Mark Raskino (Harvard Business Press, 2008) and in "Understanding Gartner's Hype Cycles, 2009." The Hype Cycle characterizes the typical progression of a technology, from overenthusiasm through a period of disillusionment (because of the inevitable failures that arise from inappropriate application and timing), to an eventual understanding of the technology's relevance and role (see Figure 4).
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Figure 4. The Hype Cycle
expectations
Activity beyond early adopters Negative press begins Supplier consolidation and failures Second/third rounds of venture capital funding
Supplier proliferation Mass media hype begins Early adopters investigate First-generation products, high price, lots of customization needed Startup companies, first round of venture capital funding
High-growth adoption phase starts: 20% to 30% of the potential audience has adopted the innovation Methodologies and best practices developing
Less than 5% of the potential audience has adopted fully
Third-generation products, out of the box, product suites
R&D
Second-generation products, some services
Innovation Trigger
Peak of Inflated Expectations
Trough of Disillusionment
Slope of Enlightenment
Plateau of Productivity
time
The Hype Cycle has five phases:
Technology Trigger: The Hype Cycle starts when a breakthrough, public demonstration, product launch or some other event generates press and industry interest in a technology innovation. Peak of Inflated Expectations: Companies that like to be ahead of the curve seek out the technology and jump on it before their competitors. The suppliers of the technology boast about their early prestigious customers, and other companies want to join in so they are not left behind. A bandwagon effect kicks in, and the technology is pushed to its limits as companies try it out in a range of settings. Stories in the press capture the excitement around the technology and reinforce the need to become a part of it or be left behind. Trough of Disillusionment: Impatience for results begins to replace the original excitement about potential value. Problems with performance, slower-than-expected adoption, or a failure to deliver financial returns in the time anticipated all lead to missed expectations. Many of these
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failures center round inappropriate uses of the technology. Less-favorable press stories start to emerge as most companies realize things aren't as easy as they first seemed.
Slope of Enlightenment: Some early adopters overcome the initial hurdles and begin to experience benefits. Understanding grows about where the technology can be used to good effect and, just as importantly, where it brings little or no value. Over time, the technology matures as suppliers improve products on the basis of early feedback. Methodologies for applying it successfully are codified, and best practices for its use are socialized. Plateau of Productivity: With the real-world benefits of the technology demonstrated and accepted, growing numbers of organizations feel comfortable with the now greatly reduced levels of risk. A sharp uptick ("hockey stick") in adoption begins, and penetration accelerates rapidly as a result of productive and useful value.
Figure 5 shows a typical Hype Cycle in this case highlighting in-car information and communication technologies relevant to the auto industry and its suppliers. It gives the position of each technology along the stages of the Hype Cycle as of July 2007. In addition to providing a snapshot of the position of the technologies at a particular point in time, the Hype Cycle acknowledges the varying speeds that technologies travel through the cycle by assigning each one to a particular band of "years to mainstream adoption" (e.g., less than two years, two to five years).
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Figure 5. Gartner Hype Cycle for Vehicle Information and Communications Technologies, 2007
visibility
Natural Language Speech Recognition Car-to-Car Communication Terrestrial Digital Radio (HD Radio) In-Car, Hands-Free Input Technologies Car-to-Infrastructure Communication Eye Tracking Dual-View Displays
Use-Based Vehicle Insurance Collision-Avoidance Systems Public Telematics Ultrawideband/Wireless USB
Haptics
Fleet Tracking Systems Traffic Data Services Head-Up Displays Satellite Navigation Systems Commercial Telematics Bluetooth in Automobiles Consumer Telematics X-by-Wire Technologies Remote-Diagnostic Telematics
WiMAX in Automobiles Satellite Digital Radio Mood Recognition Consumer DRM Wi-Fi in Automobiles
eCall
Vehicle Information Hub
As of June 2007
Technology Trigger
Peak of Inflated Expectations
Trough of Disillusionment
Slope of Enlightenment
Plateau of Productivity
time
Years to mainstream adoption: less than 2 years
2 to 5 years
5 to 10 years
more than 10 years
obsolete before plateau
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Hype Cycles are a useful starting point for discussion and prioritization of technology candidates, because their relative positioning and their "years to mainstream adoption" ratings contain implicit assumptions that decision makers need to lay on the table. Some ETGs use Hype Cycles as a way to structure a discussion about their innovation candidates with their executives. For example, one ETG draws on the annual Gartner Hype Cycle report (which creates dozens of populated Hype Cycles across information technology topics, applications, and industries) to create its own portfolio of several hundred innovation candidates. It plots the most relevant on a snapshot Hype Cycle (see "Toolkit: My Hype Cycle, 2009" for a tool to select and filter from 1,600 Hype Cycle technologies, and create your own Hype Cycle). It then divides the chart into two parts: pre-Trough of Disillusionment and post-trough (see Figure 6). For pretrough technologies, the team asks itself, "Is there anything here we could be using for competitive advantage?" that is, where is it worthwhile for the organization to move out of its comfort zone and adopt aggressively? For technologies positioned after the trough, the team asks, "Is there anything here that we are not using? If so, was that a deliberate decision (in which case it is OK), or are we missing something?" The insight from these discussions informs the ETG's ranking and prioritization decisions.
Figure 6. Two Key Questions for the Hype Cycle
What's here that we could be using?
What's here that we're not using? Was that a deliberate decision?
Expectations
Time
The Hype Cycle is also useful in explaining why the recommendations from ETGs may be different from what companies are hearing or reading in the media. At the Peak of Inflated Expectations, technology planners will caution: "Don't get caught up in the hype. Let's adopt it only if it is strategically important to us. Otherwise, let's wait for others to learn the hard lessons." In the
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Trough of Disillusionment, technology planners will recommend: "Let's start looking at the technology now because there are some solid products emerging and real-world experience about how to use the technology." The key message of the Hype Cycle is that companies should not invest in a technology just because it is being hyped, nor should they ignore a technology just because it is not living up to early overexpectations.
5.4 Radar Screens

A radar screen focuses primarily on the timing of a technology's impact that is, it answers the question "How long before I need to pay attention to this technology?" It uses the metaphor of a pilot's radar screen, with the measure of distance replaced by time. Figure 7 shows a radar screen that plots some of the technologies from the vehicle Hype Cycle in Figure 5. Some organizations segment the sections of the radar screen to group different classes of innovation together for example, by business/process/technology or by technology domain. The size and color of the items on the radar screen can be used to convey additional information, such as the level of potential benefit of each innovation or which candidates are recommended for follow-up.
Figure 7. Radar Screen With Information Extracted From Gartner's Hype Cycle for Vehicle Information and Communications Technologies, 2007
Time to Mainstream
More Than 10 Years
Mood Recognition
Car-to-Infrastructure Communication Car-to-Car Communication
Eye Tracking
5 to 10 Years
Use-Based Vehicle Insurance Collision-Avoidance Systems Head Up Displays
Terrestrial Digital Radio Traffic Data Services Satellite Digital Satellite Navigation 2 to 5 Years Radio Systems
Less Than 2 years to Mainstream

Color can be used to highlight additional information, such as level of interest among various business units. For example, by using various colors to show the number of groups that have potential applications for an innovation or that have expressed interest in it (e.g., red for high interest, green for low interest), the radar screen can act as a "heat map." High color intensity
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indicates a higher potential relevance and value for the candidate. A similar heat map approach can be used with other graphical models as well as the radar screen. Another factor that could be included to good effect on a radar screen would be the level of internal disruption (to people, technology or processes) that the technology would bring. Highly disruptive technologies need a longer lead time to evaluate and deploy, so adding this factor would highlight a situation where, even though a technology is further out in terms of target deployment, the lead time is such that planning needs to begin soon.
5.5 Priority Matrix

A priority matrix is a version of a risk/benefit graph that highlights where to focus investment resources. The vertical axis shows the expected benefit of the technology, while the horizontal axis shows some measure of the technology's risk. Candidates are placed in cells according to their risk and benefit profiles. Categories for the benefit rating are:
Transformational. Enables new ways of doing business across industries that will result in major shifts in industry dynamics. It changes the game in some fundamental way. High. Enables new ways of performing business processes that will result in significant revenue growth or cost savings. Moderate. Provides incremental improvements in established processes that will result in increased revenue or cost savings for an enterprise. Low. Leads to minor improvements that are difficult to translate into revenue growth or cost savings.
The risk rating can be made in several ways, ranging from a simple measure of the innovation candidate's maturity (with low maturity indicating high risk) to a complex analysis of its multiple risk factors. In its annual Hype Cycle special report, Gartner creates a companion priority matrix for each Hype Cycle, with the "years to mainstream adoption" value as the horizontal axis (where "less than two years" to mainstream would indicate a lower level of risk than "Two to five years to mainstream"). Figure 8 shows the priority matrix for the vehicle information and communications technologies Hype Cycle shown in Figure 5.
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Figure 8. Gartner's Priority Matrix for Vehicle Information and Communications Technologies, 2007
Figure 9 shows how to interpret a priority matrix. Candidates in the top left of the matrix deserve high-priority investment. These technologies are likely to have high impact and reach a reasonable level of maturity soon. Conservative (Type C) companies will probably limit their focus to this area. More-aggressive (Type A and some Type B) companies are probably already using technologies that will mature in less than two years. So they will be more likely to evaluate technologies farther to the right or lower on the priority matrix, technologies that will not be widely used for at least five years but that may provide a competitive edge in the interim. Note that the potential benefit of a technology varies significantly from industry to industry and even from company to company in the same industry, according to the business models or the goals and plans of each. There may also be some intercompany and interindustry variation on the horizontal risk axis, but usually less than on the benefit axis.
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Figure 9. Priority Matrix Adoption Profiles
benefit
years to mainstream adoption

less than 2 years 2 to 5 years
Cons ervativ e (T ype C) inves tment profile
5 to 10 years
Moderate (Type B) inves tment profile
more than 10 years

Aggress ive (Type A) inv estment profile
transformational
Invest aggr essively if not already adopted
high
Conservative (Type C) investment profile
Moderate (Type B) inves tment profile
Aggres sive (Type A) inves tment profile
Invest with caution
moderate
Moderate (T ype B) investment profile
Aggres sive (Type A) inves tment profile
Invest with c aution
Invest with extreme caution
low
Aggress iv e (T ype A) investment profile
Invest with c aution
As of June 2009
A priority matrix is a particularly useful way to dampen the effects of excessive external market hype, and can be used in conjunction with a Hype Cycle to juxtapose the expectation-driven view with a perspective based on value for the organization. By showing graphically the relative priority of the innovations, it is easier to justify why some innovations are being pursued and not others. Another way to use the priority matrix is to divide it into quadrants showing the different actions that should be taken according to the risk/benefit combinations, as shown in Figure 10.
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Figure 10. Actions Resulting From a Priority Matrix Assessment
benefit
years to mainstream adoption

less than 2 years 2 to 5 years 5 to 10 years more than 10 years
transformational
high
Evangelize Pilot Implement
Track Evaluate
moderate
low
Leverage
Ignore
The recommended action for each quadrant is:
Low-risk/high-benefit candidates should receive the most aggressive attention. These are the "low-hanging fruit" that all parties can agree are worthwhile. High-risk/high-benefit candidates should be evaluated to understand better their risks, benefits and timing. This type of candidate can present major opportunities once the risks are understood. It is also the type of innovation typically ignored unless there is a group specifically dedicated to evaluating and eliminating the risks. Low-risk/low-benefit candidates are generally left until there is a distinct need or request for the innovation, or until continued nonadoption starts to increase the risk of being left behind. High-risk/low-benefit innovation candidates are the lowest priority and are generally passed over in favor of other opportunities.
5.6 Technology Scorecards

A technology scorecard offers a more detailed approach to prioritization. The scorecard provides a format for assessing the relative value of the technology when weighed against the costs and risks.
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This technique is particularly suitable for prioritization of fully developed project candidates that have already undergone some level of evaluation to determine more-detailed information regarding benefits, costs and risks. To create a scorecard (see Figure 11), the factors contributing to the potential benefit/impact of the technology are enumerated and assigned a number (for example, one to 10, where higher benefits receive a higher number). Likewise, the factors contributing to cost and risk are enumerated and assigned a number (where higher risks or costs receive a lower number). The factors are then added up, and the technologies can be ordered by rank. An even more rigorous scorecard would assign different levels of importance to various factors, so that the score for highly important factors counts more toward the final score than those factors that are deemed less important. However, avoid overly complex weightings and algorithms because they can become opaque to stakeholders (leading to loss of trust), lead to overconfidence in the level of accuracy and induce management "gaming."
Figure 11. Rating Scorecard
Idea #1 Business Objectives Financial Objectives Risk Factors Business Support Score Select? 8 5 6 8 27 Y
Idea #2 7 9 8 3 27 N
Idea #3 8 3 5 3 19 N
Idea #X 8 5 2 6 21 N
Note that some risks may be so important that they overrule all other considerations. For example, even a highly compelling innovation candidate with demonstrable business value can flounder because a single but crucial user opposes it, as shown in Figure 11 under the factor "business support." (Note that this is the same principle as the cutoff threshold in a spider chart.) In such cases, it is important to remove or negate the risk, for example by delaying adoption until another test location with a strong champion can be found. Identify such risks on the scorecard, and note the score below which they trump other factors.
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5.7 Balancing the Portfolio

Before making the final selection of which technology candidates to pursue further, some ETGs add a step to ensure that their portfolio of successful candidates is balanced. It may turn out, for example, that most of the candidates are focused in one area of the business. Progressing with all those candidates might overload that area's capacity for change and also upset people in other areas that feel neglected. Or the candidates might all tend toward high risk or low risk, toward long term or short term, toward one geographic region, or toward some other distortion. One way to achieve a balance is to divide the portfolio into distinct categories and allocate each category a percentage of the overall portfolio. For example, with respect to benefit, the categories of run the business, grow the business and transform the business can be used as follows:
Run the business applies to technologies that help things run smoothly. They are usually (but not always) relatively mundane, low-risk technologies with a fast but low-value return. Typically around 20% to 30% of new technology projects fall into this category, although the percentage can be significantly higher among companies with a less aggressive enterprise personality, or when operating in an economic downturn when transformational innovation may be viewed by executives as less desirable. Grow-the-business technologies are those with clear and substantial potential to help the organization improve its performance. They involve moderate risk, and pay back well within the framework of how the business traditionally operates and makes investments. These are usually the backbone of the emerging technology portfolio and should make up around 40% to 60% of all candidates. Transform-the-business technologies break the mold. They force reassessment of how the industry works, or challenge some aspect of the current business operating model. They might make up 10% to 40% of all candidates, depending on how eagerly the organization pursues radical change.
A benefit of segmenting the candidates in this manner is that it is easier to compare like with like. By setting aside a portion of the budget for technologies that may transform the business, for example, it is no longer necessary to compare a high-risk, high-return undertaking with one that is a sure but small win. Another aspect of managing the ETG portfolio lies in balancing the reactive response to the "pull" of business requests for help against the proactive, "push" activities of understanding technology innovation ahead of business needs (see "Combine Push and Pull Innovation to Achieve IT Innovation Success"). Depending on the culture and enterprise personality of the organization, and on the mission and goals of the emerging technology activities, the portfolio may be a relatively equal mix of the two sources of candidates, or may be strongly biased toward one source. In either case, it is essential that both are represented to some degree. Without dedicated effort, the highrisk/high-benefit candidates in the top right of the priority matrix will not be "pushed," and opportunities will be missed. Without being responsive to the needs of the business, an ETG will be viewed as too "ivory tower" and most likely disbanded.
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Technology requests from the business units and executive management (i.e., the "pull") often involve a less formal ranking than those that are initiated by the ETG. Projects are typically prioritized by considering a combination of the status of the requester, the amount of time required to fulfill the request, and the extent to which the topic aligns with the ETG's strategic tracking activities. For example, a short project for the CEO would inevitably receive high priority; a business unit looking for time-consuming support on multiple niche, nonstrategic projects may not have all its requests met by the ETG. However, a request from a business unit to evaluate a technology that the ETG believes will be strategic to the company may be selected, even if it requires significant investment in ETG staff.
5.8 Taking Action Based on Ranking Results

In conducting a ranking of technology candidates, the discussions around the values assigned to individual candidates are often more useful than the final ranking itself. In particular, breaking down the evaluation into distinct factors and objectives forces explicit discussion around all key factors and minimizes the risk that something important will be overlooked. This approach forces people to be explicit about the reasons for their conclusions, which helps counter personality-driven decision making. The level of available funding and number of staff determine how many projects can go forward. Even in companies with well-funded emerging technology programs, there is a limit to management time and attention, and a limit to the organization's capacity for change. Depending on the culture of the company, the ETG may make the final determination of which project candidates receive funding based on the kind of ranking exercises just described. In some cases a steering committee may decide through a vote. Or a key executive may decide unilaterally, on the basis of information, analysis and recommendations presented to him or her. One other set of decisions is still to be made at this point: what to do with the candidates not selected. In general, most will be placed on a list of candidates to watch, and a few of the least relevant will be dropped entirely. Organizations that maintain an active technology portfolio update the entries for each candidate at this point, indicating the current status (e.g., inactive, tracking, evaluating) and incorporating any new information gathered during the ranking process.
6.0 Evaluate: The Deliverable Is a Decision

6.1 Planning the Evaluation Project
The goal of the evaluation stage is to investigate areas where insufficient knowledge of the technology or its impact is preventing a final determination of whether to invest in the technology. Gaps or weak areas in the technology profile can highlight where to focus investigations. The evaluation focuses on a specific application of the technology, not on the technology's potential in the abstract. If a business champion has not yet been identified for the application, this should be addressed during project planning. In addition, involvement of business unit and IT staff should be considered to begin the technology transfer process and ensure a path forward if the evaluation is successful.
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The scale of an evaluation project may range from an individual downloading free tools from the Web to try them out, to informal in-house prototyping, or to a multimillion-dollar trial involving thousands of people in multiple locations. The size of investment required to fully adopt the innovation drives the overall weight and formality of the evaluation activities. An evaluation project should perform the minimum necessary to obtain the information and insight needed. For large and disruptive innovations, it may be desirable to break the evaluation into multiple stages to lower the initial level of commitment. One company uses the guideline 3x3x3 for its initial evaluation projects they should take no more than three people working for three months at a cost of $30,000. Typically, at least two stages of evaluation are performed a "paper" study that expands the technology profile to look at in more detail issues such as architectural impact, integration and security, followed by a more detailed, hands-on joint evaluation with the business sponsor. The project plan for a technology evaluation project should include explicit goals for the evaluation, and the criteria by which success will be determined. It should include an initial indication of longerterm plans, particularly staffing and funding, to ensure that a path to further development exists if evaluation leads to a decision to proceed.
6.2 What to Evaluate: Benefits, Risks and Costs

An evaluation project begins the process of determining whether there is a business case for the innovation, although it does not produce the same detailed financial plan required for a full-scale deployment and rollout of the innovation. The aim for now is to estimate benefits, costs, and risks to a level that enables a decision to be made. 6.2.1 Evaluating Benefits Determining the potential benefits of a technology is particularly challenging during the early stages of its life cycle, because there is little evidence from other organizations about the real value gained once the technology is deployed. Even once a technology is better understood, there are still two major challenges: the value may not be easily expressed in numerical terms, and the experience of other organizations may not be applicable to your environment. In looking at the particular challenges of business cases for early-stage technologies, a useful way to structure discussions and investigations is to consider four sources of value: solving a problem, creating an opportunity, making someone feel good, and making someone look good. (Reference: Richard Zultner, "TQM for Technical Teams," Communications of the ACM 36, no. 10 [October 1993]: p80.) The first two are the type of value propositions that fit well into traditional business case analysis, but the second two making someone feel good or look good are a valuable addition to acknowledge the "softer" benefits that are often overlooked in metrics-driven organizations. Table 2 shows examples of benefits organized according to whether they affect your organization's people, processes, business or infrastructure. They include examples from all four sources of value for example, minimizing errors to solve a problem, enabling strategic partnerships as an opportunity, improving employee morale to make them feel good, improving your company's brand image to make it look good.
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Where possible, the benefits should be related back to the work that was performed in the scope phase to identify the business value context. By figuring out the impact of a technology innovation on specific business goals and metrics that matter to leaders and stakeholders, technology planners will be better able to predict and evangelize the improvement the technology will bring.
Table 2. Example Benefits of a Technology Candidate People Improve training and career development Improve employee morale Remove obstacles to productivity Repurpose employees to more value-added tasks Develop process experts Reduce personnel costs Reduce head count Processes Reduce transaction processing times Shorten product development Eliminate non-valueadded tasks Minimize errors/ rework Standardize processes Implement selfservice Implement best practices Centralize customer service Business Improve brand image Create new revenue sources Improve decision speed and quality Enable premium pricing React faster to business change Improve customer servicequality and response times Reduce risk Grow market share Enable strategic partnerships Regulatory compliance Infrastructure Increase reliability, quality and integrity Reduce complexity Lower future development costs Reduce software purchase prices and license fees Reduce ongoing support costs Increase future scalability, flexibility and agility Decrease facilities and management costs Eliminate redundant information storage
6.2.2 Evaluating Risks and Costs In addition to assessing the potential benefits, an evaluation needs to focus on learning, understanding and minimizing the different types of risk associated with a new technology, including:

Performance. Does the technology work as reliably and to the quality levels expected? Integration. Does it perform within cost and time requirements in a real, working environment? Can it be readily incorporated into existing architectures and processes? Penetration. Will the ultimate users of the technology embrace it and assimilate it into their daily work? For the technology to provide value, must all or most of its users adopt and use it? Payback. How likely is it that the projected business value will materialize as expected and on schedule?
Table 3 shows potential risks associated with technologies, structured according to each type of risk, along with some pointers on how to mitigate or defend against each risk.
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Table 3. Example Risks of a Technology Candidate Type of Risk Performance Risk Innovation improperly sold doesn't meet needs Innovation is superseded in the marketplace Solution selection due diligence; phased implementation; pilot programs Innovation maturity analysis; industry outlook; mainstream/ late adoption Supplier outlook assessment; contract terms How to Mitigate the Risk
Supplier stops selling/supporting the innovation Supplier goes out of business Innovation fails in the marketplace
Supplier outlook assessment; other supplier options Industry outlook; supplier takes some of the risk; mainstream/late adoption Risk assessment of other projects where dependencies exist
Innovation is dependent on another system that fails to deliver Integration Risk Unable to manage solution complexity
Phased implementation; pilot programs; additional parallel testing; custom training program; hire new skills Custom training program Third-party independent validation and verification program; best project managers assigned Solution selection due diligence; pilot programs
Lack of skills in the marketplace Unable to maintain project schedule
Inability to integrate with current systems Penetration Risk Employee resistance to change Employees do not see personal benefit Employees use occasionally or superficially Monetization Risk Benefits are overestimated
Change management and communication programs Evaluation of individual, not just corporate, benefit Training, seeding power users
Conservative benefits estimation; backed up with supporting data; proof of concept Comprehensive requirements gathering
Business requirements are inaccurate
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Type of Risk System does not meet business requirements Business requirements change
How to Mitigate the Risk Solution selection due diligence; proof-of-concept and pilot programs Business accountability for requirements and formal signoff; phased implementation with managed evaluation of business requirements Implementation and adoption plan with key benefits milestones, dependencies and assigned owners Total cost of ownership analysis; contract minimizes risk of cost increases Conservative benefits estimation and financial analysis
Unable to capture estimated benefits
Project costs more than anticipated
Financial benefits are elusive or less than anticipated

Estimating costs is the third key element of the evaluation (along with benefits and risks). Most technologies of substance will involve some upfront costs to purchase and deploy. These costs should be treated as an investment like any other and should conform to the company's general methods and approaches, such as ROI, net present value (NPV), or other standard financial assessment techniques. When assessing an innovation's financial impact, it's often useful to ask, "What increase in cost would cause me to abandon this investment?" If the answer is only a small percentage, then the investment may be excessively risky. Assume that the return on adopted innovations will be lower and later than initially expected because of costs and risks not identified. Returns substantially greater than forecast do occur but are rare.
6.3 How to Evaluate: Prototypes, Pilots and Champion/Challenger

Information from other organizations can provide a certain level of input to an adoption decision. Other adopters that are farther ahead in their cycles can be a valuable source of knowledge and are often willing to share what they have learned if they are not direct competitors. Even in a competitive environment, sharing of experience can still take place for technologies not tied to immediate competitive advantage. Technology suppliers are usually able to provide referrals to others that have already adopted. Even contacts provided by a supplier are usually surprisingly blunt about their experience with the technology and the supplier. However, because each organization's situation is unique, these external inputs can only go so far in guiding decision making. When an organization chooses to adopt a technology before it is fully mature, it will usually require some hands-on evaluation to assess the benefits, risks and costs. One of the primary motivations for creating an ETG is to free up some dedicated resource for this type of evaluation, which is difficult to conduct as a part-time role. Hands-on evaluation activities include prototypes, pilots and trials, and champion/challenger comparisons.
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6.3.1 Prototypes Prototypes are used primarily as a risk-reduction tool to investigate areas of high technical uncertainty, and also sometimes as a marketing tool to increase internal awareness of a technology's potential or to explore application ideas. Examples of uses of prototypes include:

Assessing the robustness, performance or accuracy of the technology Determining the impact on established architecture and infrastructure Refining the scope of the application Estimating the costs of deploying a pilot or full-scale application Inspiring management and users by demonstrating potential business benefits
The team must clearly define the role and function of the prototype in advance, because some goals may be incompatible in a single prototype. For example, a technical prototype may uncover performance issues but is unsuitable for a high-impact management presentation, while a proof-ofconcept screen show can highlight changes in business processes, but will not test a technology's limitations. Most importantly, the evaluation team should not deliver prototype code for operational use despite enthusiastic and urgent requests from users. All operational systems should go through the company's normal quality and deployment procedures. Selecting a vendor for a prototype activity can be as critical as selecting one for deployment, but for different reasons. While the vendor requirements for an operational system are based on reliability, longevity and ease of development, a prototype demands optimal technology performance (for example, the most accurate speech recognition, the smoothest and highest-resolution video). Although performance often comes at the expense of product maturity, it provides technologists, users and management with a better appreciation of what the technology capabilities will be once the technology is mature. Prototyping can serve as a vehicle to begin to address technology transfer. For example, business unit representatives might help formulate requirements for a prototype of a new workflow that takes advantage of the technology, or the architecture group might support an assessment of what upgrades would be required to the corporate network were the technology to be deployed. Involving the architecture and security teams at this stage is a critical way to develop their buy-in to the project and encourage a mind-set of "how do we make this work" rather than "what problems this will cause." A particular kind of prototype sometimes adopted by future-oriented ETGs can be characterized as "experiential prototyping," whereby the ETG members use the technology themselves for a period of time. This is a particularly appropriate for devices, personal productivity or collaboration technologies. The ETG evaluates products, realizing that the products are necessarily imperfect at this early stage of their evolution, and selects one or more for implementation within the ETG. The ETG uses the technology in its daily operations to determine the impact and potential problems. This approach combines technical evaluation with marketing: As senior managers and other key individuals see the technology in use within the ETG, they may be inspired as to the broader potential of the technology.
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6.3.2 Pilots and Trials A further way to investigate unforeseen problems, particularly with user penetration issues, is to develop pilots and trials for use in a live operational environment. The focus of a pilot is to evaluate the usability and effectiveness of an innovation with a small number of users, before a wider introduction. This is the next step beyond a prototype, which only demonstrates basic feasibility under controlled, laboratory-like conditions. To fully assess a technology's potential benefits and issues, pilots must be evaluated by typical users trying to perform their normal tasks. The evaluation should include staff or customers new to the innovation, as well as those involved in the pilot development, because each will have different preconceptions and prejudices. A good pilot investigates potential behavioral issues such as natural resistance of people toward change. Users must be given appropriate incentives to adopt change, especially change they perceive as negative. Resistance may be due to factors such as personality (some people are naturally less innovative and more prone to resistance), incentive conflicts, lack of understanding of the rationale for adoption, and skepticism about the usefulness of the system and whether it will "take" (and, hence, whether it is worth learning). Fear also plays a major role, including fear of job change, loss of power and influence, and loss of prestige and of "being an expert" in the old way of doing things. These examples from Gartner clients trying to introduce speech recognition illustrate how not to present pilots to business users:
A midlevel manager was asked to evaluate a speech recognition system for dictation, and was told that if the technology worked well, he would lose his administrator, because she would no longer be required to take dictation from him. Needless to say, his findings were that the technology did not work well enough. Warehouse employees responsible for unloading trucks were provided with a speech-based data entry system that meant they could continue unloading as they entered data, rather than stopping to enter the information in a nearby PC. Although unloading a greater number of trucks per employee per day was an excellent outcome for the company, the individuals were not strongly motivated to work harder unloading more trucks, which is heavy physical work, for no personal benefit.
All parties involved in the evaluation must be made aware of the impact on their time. Users typically become less productive because of the learning curve, and developers often find themselves involved full-time with fixing problems and implementing user suggestions for improvements. Depending on the scope of the pilot, a major portion of the funding and staffing for the project may come primarily from the ETG. Later-stage or more-ambitious pilots may be funded by the relevant business unit that would lead the implementation, with support from the ETG. Whoever leads the effort, the pilot represents a critical phase in the technology transfer process as ETG and business unit staff work together. By the end of the pilot phase, the ultimate owner must be positioned to
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lead the operational systems' development, deployment and ongoing support. Figure 12 shows a migration path for ETG staff to transfer ownership to other parts of the organization.
Figure 12. Technology Transfer from ETG to IT or Business-Unit Staff
Decreasing Role of Emerging Technology Group

Lead Early Evaluation Papers Prototypes
Increasing Role of IT or Business Unit

Support
Late Evaluation Pilot Business Case
Support
Rollout
Lead
6.3.3 Champion/Challenger Evaluations As well as user acceptance issues, an additional purpose of a pilot may be to evaluate the relative benefit of a new approach using the candidate technology. This test is a statistical real-world comparison that compares an already-established way of operating (the champion) against the innovation (the challenger). Because changes to an operation process or system can be risky, a champion/challenger test can reduce the risk of exposing the entire current business operation to the new approach. It involves running a trial with a recruited group of test users and a control group for comparison over a defined period. A similar approach can be used to test multiple variations on an innovation and see which one generates the best response. This approach is well-established in marketing campaigns (e.g., which version of a direct mailing or Web advertisement, each delivered to a different group of consumers, generates the best response). This can be set up as a champion/challenger to see the value of the innovation, or as multiple challengers. The Web is a natural test bed for evaluating alternatives and obtaining rapid feedback on the best way to deliver capabilities.
6.4 Technology Evaluation Documents

Technology evaluation reports or white papers present the results of evaluation efforts in a way that facilitates making an adoption decision. An evaluation document typically follows a structure similar to that of the original technology profile prepared in the track stage, but contains significantly more detail on each topic. In particular, it should include a more-detailed assessment of benefits and costs as input to a full business case. Also, it should highlight remaining areas of risk.
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The report can incorporate the results of ad hoc experimentation, surveys, competitive analysis, user or business model analysis, or prototyping and pilot activities. The report should also examine alternatives to the innovation by asking the question "How might you achieve the same benefits in a different way?" There may be a work-around using existing capabilities and assets, or maybe an alternate technology. Also consider what would happen if the decision were to be do nothing for now. The report style will vary according to the scale of the innovation and the target audience. For example, evaluating a simple new add-on device for company mobile phones might only require a short three- or four-page write-up. But deciding whether to introduce biometric passenger security into an international airport will require far more substance. Similarly, the formal, detailed, technical style of reporting an engineering team might prefer will differ from the visual "net it out" style a marketing team likes. An evaluation report usually concludes with a recommendation based on the evaluation activities that have been performed, although the evaluation team may not be responsible for the final determination of whether to move forward.
6.5 Making the Decision

The key deliverable from an evaluation project is not a report, a recommendation, a demonstration or a prototype of the innovation, although all those may be important parts of the evaluation. The key deliverable is the decision to proceed or not. Before embarking on the evaluation project, the team needs to establish how this decision will be made and who will make it. The decision maker might be a business process owner, governance committee or an individual such as the CIO or chief marketing officer. If the ETG is responsible for making the decision, it will typically need to work together with the business sponsor. The decision will involve one of these outcomes:
Proceed to next stage. Move to the evangelize and transfer stages as the first step of deploying the technology. Re-evaluate. Revisit the evaluation in a revised form for example, with a different application or an alternative product. Return to tracking stage. Delay further consideration of adoption until the technology matures further and can be re-evaluated. If possible, identify maturity targets (e.g., performance, cost) that would make it worthwhile to re-evaluate this technology. Drop from consideration. Remove the technology from the portfolio being tracked. It may be picked up again at the later stage, but for now does not warrant tracking or evaluation.
A decision not to proceed immediately with further development of a technology should not be viewed as a failure. In fact, not proceeding should be considered as successful an outcome as a decision to go ahead. Such a decision may save the company considerable expense. It is preferable that rejection occur early in the evaluation process rather than later because it's harder to stop development of an innovation after significant investment has been made.
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Such a decision may save the company considerable expense, compared to an approach that forces all projects, once begun, to be fully deployed. Companies that encourage controlled risktaking (for example, by using well-defined decision points) are better able to identify which technology or application, from the multitude of possibilities, will have the most significant impact. By making a small investment in a number of evaluations, a company can identify technologies with a high chance of success, in the same way a venture capitalist invests in many companies, most of which will fail, for the sake of the few that will generate high returns. Some companies actually plan for a specific amount of failure in the evaluation stage. They might expect, say, 50% of innovations evaluated not to move forward. They believe they're not being aggressive enough if all their candidates progress into deployment. In those instances when the decision is not to adopt, it is still worth recording the evaluation process and final decision. A frequent reason not to adopt is timing rather than the inherent value of the innovation, so it is important to note the timing and situational factors (e.g., cost) that led to rejection. That information will help others reviewing the same technology a year or so down the road to see whether the same challenges still exist or apply to them. In most cases, given appropriately targeted tracking and ranking activities, the recommendation will be to adopt. Following this decision, the next stage is to promote the recommendation to key decision makers. ETGs are rarely in a position to lead operational deployment; therefore, the role of the ETG shifts to influencing and supporting the managers or executives outside of the ETG who will make the relevant funding decisions.
7.0 Evangelize: Spreading the Word

Evangelism is a relatively new management term coined sometime in the early 1980s and first popularized through the work of Guy Kawasaki at Apple. Kawasaki's role was to create passionate Apple advocates who would talk up the brand. His efforts are regarded as one of the reasons the Mac computer became such a success. His 1992 best-selling book, "Selling the Dream," helped popularize the concept of technology and other nonreligious evangelism as a business technique. Evangelism is a major part of the ETG role, because in many cases the team or individual responsible for uncovering, evaluating and recommending new technologies does not have the authority to require the adoption of its recommendations. The activities associated with influencing those who are in a position of authority can be divided into the more formally recognized activities of marketing and education, and their less formal but equally important counterparts of networking and driving change. The importance of effective evangelism is most apparent following the evaluation phase, but it needs to take place throughout the life cycle of scoping, tracking, ranking, evaluating and transferring. Teams that leave the marketing of their ideas to the later stages rarely have success the seeds must be planted much earlier in the life cycle.
7.1 Marketing
Marketing activities include selling the value of specific technology and application opportunities, and making others aware of the role and capabilities of the ETG itself.
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Marketing a particular idea or concept is most influential when the technology is showcased in a business context. This is particularly true in cases where the ETG has identified a promising new technology and is trying to push it into the business, rather than being driven by a business pull. In these cases, the ETG needs to take the extra step of identifying potential business impact points and presenting the technology in terms of its business benefit (for example, "Let me show you how we can reduce our customer portfolio calculation times for the same cost," rather than "Let me tell you about grid computing"). A particularly effective way of inspiring relevant parties with the potential impact of new technologies is to create a mock-up of how the business will function after the technology is in place. The mock-up could be a series of computer screens showing a new workflow (such as the environment for a call center agent), or a video showing a "day in the life" of an employee or customer (such as a customer trying to complete a transaction using a new channel). Such demonstrations can create a unifying vision for a major technology and business initiative. However, expectations must be set carefully when laying out the vision. A common response from executives who have viewed a five-year vision video is "Why can't we have this now?" The ETG will generally be most successful if it can present itself as a resource to the rest of the organization. As a centrally funded group, a major part of the ETG's role is to investigate technologies ahead of a clear business case. The ETG should encourage the business units to propose technology or project ideas that require additional investigation before feeding into mainstream business or IT funding and adoption processes. Some ETGs put out specific requests for ideas through the intranet or other communications channels. Some companies explicitly encourage innovation at all levels of the organization by offering individuals the opportunity to work on the project if their proposal is accepted. For this approach to work, all affected parts of the company must agree to support the program ahead of time so that business units are prepared to free up the time of successful applicants. The proposals from all sources should feed into the tracking and ranking activities of the STREET process.
7.2 Education
Most ETGs play a role in educating key IT executives as well as the broader IT and business community. The process of educating IT executives typically focuses on preparing a position on a technology that is generating interest, and involves face-to face sessions as well as supporting presentation material and other written justification. More speculative educational sessions can consist of seminars or lunchtime sessions where a local expert or external speaker presents a tutorial on a technology. The technology profiles and evaluation white papers created by the ETG can also be made broadly available as an educational resource. Some ETGs publish regular technology updates and distribute them on paper or e-mail for educational and marketing purposes.
7.3 Networking
One of the most important success factors for ETGs is the strength of the ETG manager's connection with the key decision makers in the company. The ETG manager needs to be politically
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aware, and respected by the business and other IT managers. Allocating specific time and effort to hallway discussions and other meetings with key players is an essential part of preparing for the point at which the ETG transfers responsibility to other groups. In most cultures, this type of faceto-face communication wins out in efficiency and effectiveness compared to lengthy work-inprogress reports and memos. Networking needs to go beyond a single business champion for a technology or application, because in many cases, multiple groups are affected by funding and staffing requirements. ETG staff can also help forge connections at various levels in the company.
7.4 Driving Change

It is important for an ETG staff to provide a realistic perspective of a technology's potential, rather than promoting its current "pet" technologies at all costs. However, it is also advisable for ETG staff to err on the side of "evangelism" in presenting the advantages and challenges of a technology. Organizational inertia frequently must be overcome by an additional boost in effort, particularly in a down economy. The ETG should make an effort to be visionary and inspire others with the potential benefits of technology always within the context of business impact. Even when the ETG has identified a technology that promises to bring significant benefits to the organization, attempts to push the technology out into deployment may be met with resistance. This natural organizational reluctance to change is compounded when the new technology replaces existing technology (such as a new network architecture) rather than augmenting it (as would, for example, a new analytical tool). Particular resistance may come from the operations group, which must throw out established procedures, expertise and experience and start over with the new technology. Resistance can be overcome in many ways:
Present or introduce the technology in such a way that the business unit or IT team feels it discovered the idea and so feels a sense of ownership. Encouraging "grass roots" interaction between technology and business representatives helps in this respect, as does identifying sponsors in the business units. Seed the technology among interested users or teams, and observe who uses the technology, for how long and for what purposes. If usage dries up after the initial enthusiasm, there may not be enough business value at this time. Create a center of excellence separate from the ETG to act as an owner and evangelist for the technology. This can leverage existing pockets of expertise. The center of excellence creates a platform or prototype that demonstrates the capabilities of the technology. As with an ETG-led project, development beyond the prototype requires a business case and a business-unit sponsor. Mandate adoption among relevant classes of users. While this does not necessarily ensure the long-term success of the technology, forcing users to try the technology gives them a chance to appreciate the benefits of the new work models the technology enables.
Ultimately, the technology must offer significant enough benefits that it stands by its own merit over time. If a technology does not gain momentum following initial introduction, it might be wise to wait
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until some significant change occurs (for example, in the maturity of the technology or in the processes it supports).
8.0 Transfer: Making It Happen

While evangelizing involves persuading others to acknowledge the potential of a new technology, transfer is about getting others to own the technology adoption for themselves. In the context of an ETG function, transfer drives acceptance of the technology to a point where further development and adoption become self-sustaining within normal business processes and practices. Projects may still need to be defined to implement the innovation, and users may still need to be trained in its use, but it no longer requires special attention as a risky and uncertain proposition. Because the role of the ETG is to provide a continuing stream of technology opportunities to the company, other groups (such as the IS group or a business unit) must take on responsibility for deploying and maintaining each new technology that has been identified as worthy of adoption. As with evangelizing, technology transfer is a process that needs to begin early in the evaluation life cycle for a technology, but becomes particularly important as the technology migrates to operational development or deployment.
8.1 Transferring Knowledge Through People

While education, training, briefings, demonstrations and reports can help raise awareness of a technology's potential, the only guaranteed way to achieve technology transfer is to focus on knowledge transfer through people. That is, knowledgeable staff work must work alongside those who need to learn the skills. Depending on the culture and resources available, several alternative scenarios are available for transferring technology through staff assignments:
Bringing in staff. Even though the ETG typically takes the lead in prototype and evaluation projects, it is essential to involve key staff from other areas of the IT organization or the relevant business unit at all stages of the evaluation. A common way to achieve this is to assign IT or business-unit personnel to work as part of the project team. These personnel will learn the required technology skills during the early stages and will be in a position to take a leadership role during deployment, when the ETG staff should draw back to act in a consulting role. Some technology transfers work in the opposite direction: the IT or business-unit staff come to the project with a specialist technology or business skill that is a strong asset to the project. Sending out staff temporarily. ETG staff can be temporarily assigned to implementation, usually for several months, to transfer specific technology skills and to ensure that the issues associated with the adoption of any new technology are addressed. Once the deployment is well under way and other team members are fully up to speed, the ETG representatives rejoin the ETG to work on new assignments. Sending out staff permanently. Under some circumstances, ETG staff follow the technology into the company by joining the implementation and support team. This can work well if the ETG representative is comfortable being aligned with a specific technology and if the ongoing support requirements are likely to be significant and challenging for the individual (for example,
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maintaining an analytics competency center). The representative can also act as a champion for rolling out the technology into other applications or departments.
Rotating staff. Some organizations augment a core ETG team or individual with additional staff on a rotating basis. Staff with specific skills (such as networking or security) are drawn in, usually from other parts of the IT organization, for only as long as a specific technology area is under investigation. Compared to the approach of bringing someone in for a specific project, the members of the rotating ETG become fully involved in all the investigational aspects of the ETG's activities. Knowledge transfer is two-way, and this approach can be an appropriate way to capitalize on specialist skills and experience from the broader IT group. Transferring across the business. One of the most difficult stages of technology transfer is transferring the technology across business units after a successful initial deployment. The ideal situation is to create enough groundswell from business units that see the value and want to become involved to give the technology "a life of its own." To maximize credibility, transfers between business units should always be championed by the unit that has already adopted the technology, although the ETG can and should help coordinate activities. Demonstrations and holding an open house are useful ways to raise awareness, but the biggest driver is word-ofmouth about the success and benefits of the initial deployment. The ETG or project staff from the business-unit implementation should be available to help jump-start deployment in other units.
8.2 Consulting to Operational Development

Depending on its mission, the ETG staff may become deeply involved in the operational deployment, or may play a peripheral role. Tasks that may be appropriate for the ETG staff with previous experience of the technology might include vendor selection, user requirements definition or integration activities. Whatever the level of involvement, a major part of the activity should center on technology transfer. ETG staff should not generally lead tasks requiring an ongoing commitment, such as user training, system maintenance and technical support. The goal of the ETG is to help create and support a self-sufficient project with a high likelihood of success, and then move on to another initiative.
9.0 Seven Imperatives for Successful Emerging Technology and Innovation Adoption
These seven imperatives will drive success in creating an enduring impact through emerging technology and innovation adoption:
Follow an emerging technology adoption process. The STREET process can be adopted or adapted as appropriate to form an organization's own emerging technology adoption process. Make emerging technology adoption someone's job. Defining a process is the first step, but identifying who will follow that process is also key to success. In some cases, this involves establishing a full-time group focused on emerging technologies. In others, emerging technology may be a part-time responsibility of the architecture group, a committee, or a key individual such as the CTO or CIO, or it may be distributed to domain experts or business leaders.
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Network, network, network. The most critical success of any technology adoption process hinges on its leader's ability to build bridges to the business units, end users and other parts of the IS organization. Like any other essential activity, this requires dedicated time and planning, even for informal networking. Tie technologies to business need. In presenting opportunities for technology to the business, take the additional step of showing how the technology will impact the work people do and the roles they have, as well as the company's products and services. Make prioritization explicit. Using a visible and graphical prioritization process, such as a Hype Cycle, radar screen or priority matrix, provides an objective basis and justification for investment decisions. The prioritization process helps decision makers inside and outside the ETG avoid becoming overly enamored of a technology at the expense of others that may be more worthwhile. Plan the route to deployment. A common failure point is when an evaluation team recommends proceeding with a technology, but nobody picks up on the recommendation. Before expending significant effort on investigating and evaluating a technology, the evaluation team should ensure that a business champion or other key management advocate will drive the project forward on a positive recommendation. Start transfer early. Projects "thrown over the fence" to a business unit or the IS organization almost never find fertile ground. To promote the transfer of promising technologies, the emerging technology process must involve relevant staff during evaluation activities and at key decision points.
This research is an update to "Strategic Technology Planning: Picking the Winners"
Recommended Reading
Emerging technology and innovation management: "Mastering the Hype Cycle: How to Choose the Right Innovation at the Right Time," Harvard Business Press, 2008 "A Maturity Model for Innovation Management" "Roundup of Innovation Management Research, 2011" "Best Practice: The Innovation Catalyst Team" "Five Myths of Innovation, 2010 Update" "CIOs Should Set a Minimum Failure Target When the Goal Is to Explore and Pilot Innovation" "Key Issues for Business Innovation and Emerging Trends, 2011"
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"Understanding Gartner's Hype Cycles, 2011" Trends: "Trends That Matter: Top Trends and Their Business Impact" "Technology Trends That Matter" "Gartner's Hype Cycle Special Report for 2011" "Toolkit: My Hype Cycle, 2011" This is part of a set of related research. See the following for an overview:
Gartner's Hype Cycle Special Report for 2012
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Driving The Street Process F 174060

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This research note is restricted to the personal use of jesus.rendon@itesm.

This research note is restricted to the personal use of jesus.rendon@itesm.mx

This research note is restricted to the personal use of jesus.rendon@itesm.mx

Gartner, Inc. | G00174060

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This research note is restricted to the personal use of jesus.rendon@itesm.mx

Gartner, Inc. | G00174060

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1.2 Defining Emerging Technology

1.3 The Importance of Process

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2.0 Overview of the STREET Technology Adoption Process

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Source: Gartner (March 2010)

Gartner, Inc. | G00174060

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3.0 Scope: Establishing the Context for Technology Innovation

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3.1 Top Down: Strategic Direction

Gartner, Inc. | G00174060

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3.2 Bottom Up: Business Issues

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3.3 Out of the Box: Visioning and Scenarios

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3.4 Enterprise Personality: Type A, B and C Characteristics

4.0 Track: Collecting the Candidates

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Two key activities in successful technology tracking are:

4.1 Technology Scan

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4.2 Technology Profiles

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Third generation More out of box Methodologies Several dominant vendors

Mature mainstream Legacy

Maintenance revenue focus

Used/resale market only

Gartner, Inc. | G00174060

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Figure 2. Government TRL Meter

TRL 9 TRL 8 TRL 7 TRL 6 TRL 5 TRL 4 TRL 3 TRL 2 TRL 1

Source: Gartner (March 2010)

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Gartner, Inc. | G00174060

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5.0 Rank: Make the Prioritization Explicit

5.1 Factors for Ranking Technologies

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5.2 Spider Charts

Low Costs Low Time to Value

Low Costs Low Time to Value

Source: Gartner (March 2010)

Gartner, Inc. | G00174060

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5.3 Hype Cycles

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Figure 4. The Hype Cycle

Less than 5% of the potential audience has adopted fully

Third-generation products, out of the box, product suites

Second-generation products, some services