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The Stage-Gate® model describes how a firm should structure its product development process using a sophisticated system of project phases and milestones. The product development process is seen as one of the key factors that determine the success of new products. The Canadian academic, Dr. Robert G. Cooper, professor of Industrial Marketing at McMaster University’s Business School, in Hamilton, Ontario Canada, published the model in 1986.
The Stage-Gate model sees product innovation as a clearly defined process. The model’s objective is to increase the quality of product innovation by focusing on the process rather than the product.
Stage-Gate consists of a number of:
STAGES ::
where the innovation process is sub-divided into a number of stages or periods where work is performed - preferably by multidisciplinary product development teams.
GATES ::
the gates or mile stones consisting of a set of specified deliverables and criteria that are placed as quality control checkpoints between each of the gates.
A progress review in the form of a gate has as output a decision (go forward, kill the project, put the project on hold or redo the current stage) and a clear path forward for the next stage. As a product moves through its development process towards market launch, each concurrent phase will require more resources from the organisation. But because the insight in the risks becomes greater with the passing of each stage, the risk of the product innovation project as a whole is reduced.
Cooper’s model assesses five stages:
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