問12
頻出度★★☆
技術ロードマップに関する記述のうち, 適切なものはどれか。
平成23年度 特別試験 ITパスポート試験 問12
This question's explanation and your answers so far.
解説
問 12
Incorrectア
The statement that it “does not indicate future directions” is wrong. The focus of a technology roadmap is on the right side of the time axis, that is, on the future. Analyses of the current situation — a technology history that organizes the past evolution of technology, a patent map that summarizes patent application trends, or a technology portfolio that lays out the strengths and weaknesses of a company's own technologies — can serve as input for creating a roadmap, but they are not roadmaps themselves. A roadmap draws the path that closes the gap between the present state (the technologies you have now) and the desired future state (the technology level that the business strategy requires), and indicating future direction is precisely its purpose.
Incorrectイ
The statement that it “is not created by governments or public administration” is wrong. Technology roadmaps do not belong only to companies and industry associations; public institutions also create and publish them. In Japan, too, there are examples such as the Technology Strategy Map of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the technology development roadmaps of NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization), which present along a timeline the technology fields the country should invest in as priorities and the targets to be reached, and which are used to steer the direction of national R&D investment and as guidelines for industry-government-academia collaboration. The creator can be a company, an industry body, a government, or a public administration.
Incorrectウ
The first half, that it “shows the milestones of technology development,” is correct, but the second half, that it “is not revised in response to market trends,” is wrong. The premises on which a roadmap rests — market needs, competitors' moves, the pace of technological progress, laws and regulations — change over time, so in practice the premises are verified and the content updated on a regular cycle, for example about once a year (a rolling approach). If a chart drawn once is kept fixed and used as it is, it drifts away from reality and can instead lead to mistaken investment decisions. Operating it with revision built in is the condition for using a roadmap effectively.
- エ
正解 The correct answer is エ. A technology roadmap is a single chart that puts time (from several to more than ten years into the future) on the horizontal axis and layers such as markets, products/services, and technologies on the vertical axis, showing which technologies must be developed, by when, and to what level in order to realize the business strategy. It is a representative tool used in MOT (Management of Technology), and its starting point always lies in the business strategy. That is, you first decide in which market you will win with what products and services, and then work backwards to lay out, along a timeline, the required component technologies, development issues, targets to reach (milestones), and the dependencies among technologies. For this very reason, a technology roadmap is not a design document that only engineers read. Executives use it to judge R&D investment and to allocate management resources; sales and marketing use it for product planning and for proposals to customers; procurement and HR use it to plan external partnerships (alliances) and staff development. The value lies in the very fact that everyone involved can look at the same chart and share the same picture of the future and the same time axis, and it works as a cross-departmental common language (a means of communication). Therefore エ, which states that it “shows technology development strategies based on business strategy, and is not something that only engineers need to understand,” is appropriate.
ここがポイント
- A technology roadmap puts time on the horizontal axis and, working backwards from the business strategy, charts along a timeline the development targets and milestones of the technologies that are needed. It is a representative tool of MOT (Management of Technology); its core is that it indicates future direction rather than organizing the past, and draws the path that closes the gap between current technologies and the technologies that will be needed in the future.
- A technology roadmap is a cross-departmental means of communication through which the people involved — management, sales, development, and others — share a picture of the future; it is not a document for engineers only. Its creators are also not limited to companies and industry associations but extend to governments and public administration, and it is premised on being operated with regular revision (rolling) as premises such as market trends and technological progress change.
用語