The Stage Gate process was designed by Scott Edget and Robert Coopers in the late 80’s, and it is used nowadays by more than 80% of Fortune 500 companies. The process was born out of the observation of best practices in New Product Development of top performing multinationals (I recommend watching the interview to Robert Cooper about the birth of Stage Gate).
In a nutshell, Stage Gate is a structured process for New Product Development that maximizes the chances of success of our Innovation Portfolio, fueling promising projects to advance rapidly to the market, and killing projects with doubtful return. Stage Gate conceptually divides the process into development phases (Stages) and milestones for decision making (Gates).
Stages ("do"): at every stage, a multifunctional Project Team (Marketing, R&D, Supply Chain, etc.) collects and generates vital information for advancing the project: technical specifications, market data, financials, operations ... The outcome at each stage is a set of documents (Deliverables) that will serve for decision making at each of the Gates
Gates ("decide"): Gates are decision points, in which the Leadership Team ("Gate Keepers") decides if the project advances, is canceled, needs rework, or is put on hold, depending on its potential and the quality of execution so far.
The following flow charts summarize the main deliverables at each Stage, and the decisions to be made at each Gate.
Although conceptually simple, the process of implementing Stage Gate in large companies with multiple projects may require specific software, like the suit of solutions designed bt Stage Gate International. In the end, it will be a decision of the company to use resources developped in-company, or to acquire commercially available software.
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