A Stage-Gate® process can increase profits

  The Stage-Gate® product development process is template for turning ideas into profitable business.
stage-gate process arleth cooper  The Stage-Gate product development process is also a checklist to help you not omitting critical activities and to build best practices into each and every single development project that you carry out.
  In fact, a well implemented Stage-Gate process can increase company profits by millions, frequently by just as many millions as your company's annual development budget.


       From idea to successful product
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Presentation about Stage-Gate


 


A systematic process
New product development begins with an idea and ends with the launch of a new product. The steps between these points can be viewed as a systematic product development process. Stage-Gate® divides this process into a series of stages.

Stages are cross-functional
Each stage contains a set of prescribed and cross-functional activities, incorporating industry best practices. It is important to remember that the activities during a stage are executed in parallel, not in sequence. This ensures that they are carried out quickly and effectively.

    stages are cross-functional - all areas and departments of the company contribute
    each stage is preceded by a decision point, i.e, the gate


Gates are the critical decision points
Gates are the critical points in the process where a decision must be made. The gate-keepers can choose to Go, Kill, Hold, or Recycle the project.

Also, gates are:
    "quality control" checkpoints:
       Has the previous stage been executed in a quality fashion?
       Has the project team done its job well?
       Is the project still attractive from an economic and business standpoint?
       Are the action plan and the path forward sound?
    project prioritisation and resource allocation decision meetings

At the end of a gate meeting, a clear and well founded decision is made. If the decision is Go, this ensures resource commitments and visible support from the management to the project leader and the team.

Gatekeepers:
Gatekeepers are the team of senior management that who own the resources and make the Go/Kill decisions at gates.

Gatekeepers:
    are from a different functional areas and can commit resources
    have a pre-set list of criteria and rules - they can't play favorites


A typical Stage-Gate® model


    A typical product development process from idea to the final product and a profitable business

The Benefits of the system
    it puts discipline in an ordinarily chaotic series of events
    it focuses attention on quality of execution
    it speeds up the project - because it is cross-functional
    it ensures a complete project - no critical steps are omitted
    it leads to a better project selection and focused resources

A well implemented system helps you ..
   to keep the schedule in the majority of your projects,
   to shorten time to market by 30% or more,
   to improve your new-product success rate by 10-30%.

And this actually increase your company's profits by millions, frequently by just as many millions as your company's annual development budget.

Get more information

<BIG>Best practices</BIG><br> <A HREF="product-development-process.html">stage-gate product development process: a best practice stage-gate development process and system: Certain practices - the so-called best practices - must be built into your process.</A> <A HREF="staff-robert-cooper.asp"> Cooper's</A> studies show that a formal process without these best practices has no positive impact on new performance.<BR> <BR> Principles are models that help us understand how the world works. Principles generate the same result each time someone uses them - no matter where and when. Principles work when you work them. The law of gravity is a principle. When you wake up, you don't have to think about which way your foot will go when you get out of bed. Likewise, two times two always equals four - never five or three.<BR> <br> There are also certain principles or best practices that successful innovators use. Unfortunately these principles are more subtle than gravity. But they certainly make a significant difference. The industry average for success in the market is 56%. The success rate of the top 20% of companies is almost 80%. <br> <br><br> <a href="stage-gate.asp">stage-gate process fundamentals</a> - <a href="stage-gate-users.html">Users of the Stage-Gate process</a> - <a href="stage-gate-training.html">Training</a> - <a href="stage-gate-test.html">Test</a> - <a href="stage-gate-expertise.html">Ekspertise</a> <br><br> <strong>Stage-Gate process noframes section</strong>: This stage-gate process site uses frames<br>. To view it, you must have a browser that can handle frames, (e.g. MS Internet Explorer 4.0)


© Jens Arleth, 2009