This paper addresses the issue of increasing the effectiveness of national IT R&D planning through the adoption of the technology roadmapping process. As a needs-driven technology planning tool, technology roadmapping can help identify and select technology alternatives to meet a set of market needs. Thus, it allows increasingly limited R&D investments to be used more efficiently. From this point of view, the Ministry of Information and Communication is considering introducing technology roadmapping to support its annual technology planning activity, In this contribution we explain why and how the IT technology roadmap was developed and suggest some useful guidelines to technology roadmapping, on the basis of literature review, case survey and our experience, for organizations due to employ the roadmapping process in the future.