Trying To Make Stage-Gate Stick?
By Dr. Ken Huskins, Director of Implementation & Training Services

Implementing Stage-Gate^® So It Works!

Many organizations often underestimate what it takes to successfully implement the authentic Stage-Gate product innovation process because the process requirements are not well understood. The result is often very damaging – little or no improvement with new product performance, wasted time, money and resources and costly disruptions to critical new product timelines. Most damaging of all, however, is your peoples’ loss of confidence that you will ever be able to derive real business advantage from Stage-Gate in your organization.

By developing a solid implementation plan for introducing Stage-Gate into your company you can avoid costly delays and damaging disappointments. An overwhelmingly high percentage of organizational change initiatives fail because of a lack of a strategy, plan and resources. Consider these best practice elements that have proven over and over again to be critical for successful Stage-Gate implementation.

Strategic Planning Elements

• How important is the Stage-Gate initiative versus how much cultural ‘pain’ it will cause?
• What are the barriers and enablers?
• What are the guiding principles we can all agree on?
• Who are the internal stakeholders that need to be heard and/or participate?
• How will implementing Stage-Gate affect our customers, end users, vendors, and co-development partners?

Tactical Planning Elements

• How will existing projects be ‘welcomed’ into or excluded from Stage-Gate?
• To what level will Stage-Gate need to integrate into or interface with existing other business processes?
• How will we resolve barriers and best leverage enablers?
• Who needs to be trained? Who will deliver the training and with what curriculum content? How will we know the training has been effective?
• What forms of communications are required and how do we know if we are effective in reaching key stakeholders?

Not sure where to start?  Let us show you how to get started, click here and call us at +1-905-304-8797.