02-09-2017, 12:12 PM
Technology management is a set of management disciplines that allows organizations to manage their technological foundations to create competitive advantage. The typical concepts used in the management of the technology are:
• technological strategy (logic or function of technology in the organization),
• technological forecasting (identification of possible technologies relevant to the organization, possibly through technological exploration),
• technological roadmap (mapping technologies for business and market needs), and
• portfolio of technological projects (a set of projects in development) and technological portfolio (a set of technologies in use).
The role of the technology management function in an organization is to understand the value of certain technologies to the organization. Continuous development of technology is valuable as long as there is value to the customer and therefore the technology management function in an organization must be able to argue when to invest in technology development and when to withdraw.
Technology management can also be defined as integrated planning, design, optimization, operation and control of technological products, processes and services, a better definition would be the management of the use of technology for human advantage.
The Association of Technology, Management and Applied Engineering defines the management of technology as the field related to the supervision of personnel across the technical spectrum and a wide variety of complex technological systems. Technology management programs typically include training in production and operations management, project management, IT applications, quality control, safety and health issues, statistics and general management principles.
Perhaps the most authoritative contribution to our understanding of technology is the diffusion of the theory of innovations developed in the first half of the twentieth century. It is suggested that all innovations follow a similar diffusion pattern - best known today in the form of an "s" curve, although originally based on the concept of a standard distribution of adopters. In general terms, the "s" curve suggests four phases of a technological life cycle: emerging, growing, mature, and aging.
These four phases are coupled with increasing levels of acceptance of an innovation or, in our case, a new technology. In recent times, for many technologies, an inverse curve has been postulated, corresponding to a decreasing cost per unit. This may not prove to be universally true, although for information technology where much of the cost is in the initial phase, it has been a reasonable expectation.
The second major contribution to this area is Carnegie Mellon's maturity model of capabilities. This model proposes that a series of progressive capacitances can be quantified through a set of threshold tests. These tests determine repeatability, definition, management and optimization. The model suggests that any organization has to master one level before it can move to the next level.
The third significant contribution comes from Gartner - the research service, is the hype cycle, this suggests that our modern approach to marketing technology results in technology being hyped in the early stages of growth. Taken together, these fundamental concepts provide a basis for formalizing the technology management approach.
• technological strategy (logic or function of technology in the organization),
• technological forecasting (identification of possible technologies relevant to the organization, possibly through technological exploration),
• technological roadmap (mapping technologies for business and market needs), and
• portfolio of technological projects (a set of projects in development) and technological portfolio (a set of technologies in use).
The role of the technology management function in an organization is to understand the value of certain technologies to the organization. Continuous development of technology is valuable as long as there is value to the customer and therefore the technology management function in an organization must be able to argue when to invest in technology development and when to withdraw.
Technology management can also be defined as integrated planning, design, optimization, operation and control of technological products, processes and services, a better definition would be the management of the use of technology for human advantage.
The Association of Technology, Management and Applied Engineering defines the management of technology as the field related to the supervision of personnel across the technical spectrum and a wide variety of complex technological systems. Technology management programs typically include training in production and operations management, project management, IT applications, quality control, safety and health issues, statistics and general management principles.
Perhaps the most authoritative contribution to our understanding of technology is the diffusion of the theory of innovations developed in the first half of the twentieth century. It is suggested that all innovations follow a similar diffusion pattern - best known today in the form of an "s" curve, although originally based on the concept of a standard distribution of adopters. In general terms, the "s" curve suggests four phases of a technological life cycle: emerging, growing, mature, and aging.
These four phases are coupled with increasing levels of acceptance of an innovation or, in our case, a new technology. In recent times, for many technologies, an inverse curve has been postulated, corresponding to a decreasing cost per unit. This may not prove to be universally true, although for information technology where much of the cost is in the initial phase, it has been a reasonable expectation.
The second major contribution to this area is Carnegie Mellon's maturity model of capabilities. This model proposes that a series of progressive capacitances can be quantified through a set of threshold tests. These tests determine repeatability, definition, management and optimization. The model suggests that any organization has to master one level before it can move to the next level.
The third significant contribution comes from Gartner - the research service, is the hype cycle, this suggests that our modern approach to marketing technology results in technology being hyped in the early stages of growth. Taken together, these fundamental concepts provide a basis for formalizing the technology management approach.