Stage-Gate In Action
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“PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi on Design Thinking”
Indra Nooyi (CEO, PepsiCo), interview with Harvard Business Review
Indra Nooyi challenged PepsiCo to rethink its entire innovation process to design highly-differentiated experiences for consumers. “It’s a fine line between innovation and design. Hopefully design leads to innovation and innovation demands design”, Nooyi explains. She describes how applying design thinking within the Stage-Gate Model created a competitive advantage for Pepsi. Read Article
“How to Drive Innovation as CFO”
Rick Puckett (CFO Snyder’s-Lance), interview with Forbes
Rick Puckett believes finance must play an integral role in an organization’s innovation process – it must be recognized as more than the “no” department. He actively participates in the Stage-Gate process, ensuring finance is fully engaged at all stages and forms strategic partnerships with the other cross-functional contributors as the company defines it products and profitability goals. The process gives him confidence that innovation will deliver continued profitability because it puts guardrails and discipline in place. Read Article
“How a Nashville Email Marketing Company Bootstrapped to $20 Million in Revenue in a Crowded Industry”
Matt Hunckler, Forbes
Emma, a Nashville TN start-up that launched a new email marketing platform in 2002, serves as a success story for start up companies. By 2015, it grew to $20 million in annual revenue and currently employs nearly 200 people. Implementing a Stage-Gate process is a key practice that founder Clint Smith recommends other bootstrapped start-ups should adopt to increase profits and drive growth. The process is instrumental to Emma’s successful software development strategy. Read Article
“Bolthouse Farms: Agile as a Small Company, Part of Something Bigger”
Dave Fusaro, Food Processing
Bolthouse Farms’ Stage-Gate Process guides its teams to work cross-functionally with great agility. The process also builds in collaboration with its larger parent company, Campbell Soup. This collaboration enables Bolthouse Farms to leverage the larger company’s culinary team and their knowledge of novel ingredients and packaging structures. As a result, Bolthouse Farms is able to take new products that delight customers rapidly from concept to shelf in 6 to 24 months. Read Article
“Arctic Cat Repositioned its Supply Chain to Better Support its Focus on New Product Development”
Tim O’Connor, Manufacturing Today
Artic Cat implemented a Stage-Gate Model tailored for developing recreational vehicles. A key benefit of the process is that it enables better cross-functional coordination between procurement and engineering. It also gives Artic Cat the advantage of being able to halt development of a new product that is not proceeding correctly and either rework it or reallocate resources to other projects. Read Article
“Kellogg’s Operations of Innovation”
Tamara Howe (Director of Innovation and Masterbrand, Kellogg Australia) interview with I/O
Tamara Howe shares how Kellogg’s uses innovation to ensure the 100-year-old-brand stays relevant. The company has successfully been able to balance the need for agility and due diligence to balance risk and reward. Kellogg’s Design Team uses ideation tools and immerses themselves in the needs of the consumer, shopper and customer to stay at the forefront of future trends. The Stage-Gate Model governs the innovation program, fostering a culture of collaboration, and ensuring teams do their due diligence. Read Article: Part 1; Read Article Part 2
“Sustainovations – Merging Sustainable Development with Consumer Insights”
Dr. Thomas Förster (Corporate VP of R&D for Beauty Care, Henkel), interview with CIEX Chemical Innovation Exchange
At Henkel Beauty Products, stainability is a mandatory strategic criterion at each gate of the company’s Stage-Gate Process. The company leverages two Stage-Gate Processes (one for mid-to-longer term advance research and one for launch initiatives) to manage a healthy innovation pipeline. The processes ensure efficient and efficacious spending of R&D money on innovations that help customers and consumers reduce their energy use and carbon footprints. Read Article
“Chipotle to Start Testing Bacon in September”
Chris Brand (Chief Marketing Officer, Chipotle), interview with QSR Magazine
Chris Brand shares how Chipotle is using its new Stage-Gate Process to achieve CEO Brian Niccol’s strategy. The process will be instrumental in enabling Chipotle to develop products that are more culturally relevant and new service concepts that “meet customers where they are with flavorful food that they can feel good about eating”. So far, the process has been instrumental in piloting new initiatives to enter the late-night food sector. Read Article
“Observe, Generate, Validate: (User Centered Design Processes @ Lego”
Søren Lethin, (Concept Director PG1 Preschool Front End)
Stage-Gate is the Core Development process used at Lego to sustain commercial and operational momentum. The Stage-Gate Model together with its Front End Innovation Process help Lego develop innovative new products to achieve business goals while incorporating user feedback at all stages. Read Article
“Applying a Successful Innovation Process in the Soft Drinks Industry”
Shahar Malina Carmel (GatFoods ), interview with Soft Drinks International
The Stage-Gate Model is the new product development process leading beverage companies have chosen to manage innovation. This article provides examples of how Stage-Gate principles are applied at PepsiCo (and its subsidiary companies), Nestle, and GatFoods. Other companies referenced include BASF, DuPont, and Tetra Pak. Read Article
“The Future is Even More Exciting”
Steven Sterin (CFO Celanese), interview with CE-BLOG
The success of Celanese’s TCX® Technology has been highlighted in Forbes magazine and in a live broadcast on Fox Business News. Celanese is leveraging its Stage-Gate Process to develop successful new applications of this celebrated new technology. Read Article
“Staying Ahead of the Curve: Innovation Has Been a Core Part of Lundberg Family Farms Since It Was Founded”
Grant Lundberg (CEO of Lundberg Family Farms) interview with Smart Business Online
Lundberg Family Farms use the industry-standard Stage-Gate Model to bring discipline to Lundberg’s new product development program. Using the model has provided Lundberg with best practices for managing new product development projects. It also provides an important governance model that helps Lundberg make strategic decisions to continue to stay ahead of the curve. Read Article
“Are New Products Being Developed? Innovation at Mosaic”
Mosaic Feature
Mosaic uses a Stage-Gate Model to develop its portfolio of commodity and premium fertilizer products. The rigorous and disciplined process is used to generate ideas, formulate products, and test the products in multiple geographies. Read Article
“Defining our Approach: Discovery, Development, and Deployment”
ExxonMobil Feature
ExxonMobil invests about $1 billion in corporate research and development each year. The Stage-Gate Model is used to manage this highly successful R&D initiative that has lead to Exxon being named one of the top 100 global innovators by Thompson Reuters for its leadership performances in overall patent volume, patent-grant success rates, global reach and invention influence. Breakthrough technology projects are very risky and often have long timelines. Stage-Gate provides a consistent approach to govern these projects, from concept to research, application and eventual commercialization. Read Article
“Scaling Up Step by Step”
David Edwards (VP Sales and Marketing at Zeton, BioFuels International) interview with BioFuels International
David Edwards recommends the use of the Stage-Gate Model, which is traditionally used in the chemical process industry, for scaling bioenergy and biofuels technology development. Technology development in the biofuels industry can benefit from the use of consistent gates where the viability of the technology can be assessed before continuing with the scale up. Read Article
Cameco Uranium Projects
Cameco Feature
Cameco uses the Stage-Gate Model to strategically evaluate its uranium projects which are properties that may be developed into uranium-producing operations at some point in the future. At defined Gates, each project is re-evaluated against criteria that cover current economic, competitive, social, legal, political and environmental considerations. Only projects that meet the criteria proceed to the next stage. The Stage-Gate Model allows Cameco to build a pipeline of projects ready for a production decision and limit investment on projects with undetermined feasibility. Read Article
“Driving Innovation: The Bombardier Way”
Martin Ertl, (CIO, Bombardier) interview with Rail News, Rolling Stock and Components Technology
Martin Ertl shares how Bombardier Transportation uses the Stage-Gate Model to create a sustainable competitive advantage in innovation in its global rail business. The Model enables success by providing clearly defined Go/No Go decision points and establishes technology readiness levels for high risk projects. This is particularly important in rail innovation, where considerable upfront investments in innovation are required for a particular car model that are financed over the product lifecycle. Read Article
“BrassCraft Mfg. Now Linked to Over 50,000 Plumbers Nationwide”
Masco News Feature
When BrassCraft Manufacturing Company launched its Stage-Gate Model, it identified the need to get quick, concise feedback from the plumbing community to enable rapid prototyping in the concept stage. This need led to the development of a database that has grown to over 50,000 end users. BrassCraft is now able to survey the database to gain quick feedback within 72 hours on the new products it is developing. Read Article
“How I Did It: The CEO of Bayer Corp. on Creating a Lean Growth Machine”
Gregory S. Babe (CEO of Bayer Material Science North America) Harvard Business Review
Greg Babe completely reshaped his company, after being blindsided by a global executive committee proposal that his headquarters be shut down. Rather than taking a pure cost-cutting approach, he launched a growth initiative. The goal was to redesign everything to build in flexibility. A rigorous Stage-Gate process played an important role in identifying projects that had limited commercial potential that needed to be killed to help create a lean growth machine. Read Article
“Stora Enso Advocates Sustainable Packaging”
Shanghai Daily report on the Shanghai Best Innovative Practice Awards
Stora Enso won innovation and development awards for “Renewable and Intelligent Packaging” and “Renewable Materials” in the multinational company category. One of Stora Enso’s secrets to its success in sustainable packaging is that it uses the Stage-Gate Model. Stage-Gate provides the company with a guide for cross-functional collaboration. It also promotes the development of highly-differentiated new packaging products that leverage innovative materials and intelligent packaging. Read Article
“In Search of Innovation Excellence, TARDEC”
Presentation by Heather Molitoris, Defense Technology Center
The Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) uses its Stage-Gate Model to develop, integrate and sustain the right technology solutions to improve current force effectiveness and provide superior capabilities for future force for the Department of Defense (DOD). The process reduces product development timelines, standardizes program management techniques and transitions the right technology solutions at the right time to the Department of Defense. Read Article
“Financing Tools for Social Innovation: Three Financing Principles to Guide Social Innovation”
Kristina Costa, Center for American Progress
Applying Stage-Gate principles to funding is one way that public-sector innovators can convince the political system to consider new ideas. It has proven to be a successful approach for social-innovation finance in many countries. Taking a Stage-Gate approach ensures the right level of financing is made available to programs at different stages in their evolution to fulfill a public need. Read Article
“Assuring Project Success: Office of Government Commerce (OGC) Gateway Reviews”
Dave Underwood and Steve Murray, Association for Project Management
The British Office of Government Commerce (OGC) uses a customized Stage-Gate Model in the central government, health sector, local government and defence to govern its projects and program development. At the gates, temporary teams of independent, specialist experts conduct assurance reviews to check appropriate process is in place and being followed. They also share lessons learned from previous experiences. Read Article
“State Technology Approval Reform (STAR) / Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) State of California”
STAR Newsletter
The State of California developed a Stage-Gate Model as a structured and guided approach to help agencies/State Entities plan and execute IT projects. The process integrates components that address organizational readiness, risk identification and mitigation strategies, and opportunities for collaboration with the Department of Technology, Agency/State Entities and their respective subject matter experts. The process ensures projects have better cost and schedule baseline estimates as a result of procurement being involved in the project approval process. Read Article
“Improving the Product Development Process”
Society of Actuaries
A panel at the Society of Actuaries Spring meeting discusses the need for an efficient and effective product development process to develop new product offerings. Stage-Gate is identified as the major business process that can most easily be applied in the life insurance industry. It provides a disciplined method that can result in shorter times to market, more projects on budget, fewer errors and more successful launches. Read Article
“National Research Council of Canada: Departmental Performance Report”
Christian Paradis, Minister of Industry and Minister of State (Agriculture)
NRC launched a rigorous Stage-Gate Process, called the Program Lifecycle, designed for program evaluation and development. At launch, approximately 60 programs reoriented through the process, from concept and proposition stage to implementation planning. The process ensures programs are developed:
- based on a sound understanding of industry value chains,
- with clear technology deployment paths identified,
- with support of federal S&T priorities to achieve clearly identified outcomes.
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