Stage-Gate Recognized for its Impact on Industry
Stage-Gate Recognized as one of Industry’s Top Methodologies
Ten innovation management methods and their respective thought leaders were recognized for their significant contributions to the advancement of the field of innovation during the Product Development and Management Association’s (PDMA) Annual Conference in New Orleans (September 2023).
Father of Stage-Gate®
Stage-Gate International’s co-founder Dr. Robert G. Cooper was among the recognized, for his research and development of the world’s most widely implemented innovation governance process for new product and technology developments.
The unique Stage-Gate algorithm was discovered in Cooper’s University Lab during a first-of-its-kind benchmarking study. The study, led by Cooper and his team, analyzed over 90 factors in hundreds of corporate innovation projects, both successes and failures. Ground-breaking results revealed a set of drivers linked to performance at the product, project, portfolio and organizational levels – the first real proof that innovation success was less about luck and deep pockets, and more about the process. The algorithm and conceptual model were fashioned into the 5-Stage, 5-Gate Process for New Product Innovations and commercialized by Cooper’s company, Stage-Gate International. Early adopters of the process, companies like Exxon, P&G and DuPont, demonstrated immediate performance gains and continued improvements for decades as capability matured.
5th Generation Stage-Gate
Introduced to the world in 1986, Stage-Gate is now in its 5th Generation design with multiple Stage-Gate Pathways customized to support a range of innovations. Additionally, a growing number of practicing companies have successfully integrated agile development practices into the stages making it a powerful system influencing culture at the governance and team levels. It is the only methodology that integrates the unique roles and contributions to innovations that are made by the business leaders via investment go/kill decisions and by cross-functional teams via research, exploration, experiments, business modeling, rapid prototyping, scaling and go-to-market launch planning. It steers true cross-functional collaboration, a key driver of in-market success.
Widely Implemented Across Industries
Stage-Gate continues to be the innovation governance framework of choice by companies of all sizes and industries managing portfolios of innovations. With thousands of companies using customized Stage-Gate processes for 37 years now, it is considered one of the most rigorously tested and proven methods for managing product and technology innovation. Today, thousands of companies including Corning, Microsoft, Danfoss, Parker Hanifin, PepsiCo, Starbucks, and governments in Australia, Canada, the United States, and Great Britain use customized versions of Stage-Gate to drive value creation for their customers and shareholders.
Other thought leaders recognized for their contribution to the field of innovation include Clayton Christensen, Michael Porter, Larry Greiner, Everett Rogers, the authors of the Agile Manifesto, and Igor Ansoff.
Stage-Gate International is the world’s foremost provider of innovation management and new product frameworks, solutions, training and tools. We invented the industry standard Stage-Gate®—and nobody knows it better or is as equipped to help your organization innovate successfully.
When companies want to improve how they develop and launch new products, services and technologies, they come to us because we understand the business of innovation. Our management frameworks, training services and enabling tools are grounded in scientific findings and have proven time and again to drive product and portfolio-level performance, market share and profitability.
For over 23 years, we have been tailoring and implementing Stage-Gate for businesses of all sizes and levels of innovation capability. Our continued exploratory research has resulted in 4 new generations of improvements since we introduced Stage-Gate to the business community. We have also built a full innovation management framework around Stage-Gate, integrating new product strategy, portfolio management and organizational culture. This enables our clients to take innovation performance to new heights.
*Net Promoter Score is obtained through 3rd party market research firm, Hinge.
