By David Stokes, New Product Development and Innovation Professional

Hi

I talked a lot about the gate reviews in a previous blog (http://pdma-nz.org/news___blog?blogm=view&blogid=370) so have covered this. But a couple of other things to note about gate reviews in particular:

• Checklists
  • We used standardised checklists for each of the gates, with lists of the various activities and deliverables needed to be completed for each gate. They were valuable in that it helped the project manager to plan and manage what needed to be done in each stage. It was also useful for the gatekeepers as they could go through the list to see what has been done, and more importantly, what activities or deliverables had not been completed.
  • However, while it became a "cheat-sheet" for the process, it also got abused in that the team members would sometimes follow it to the word and ignore the more detailed process and background behind it.
  • I learnt a phrase which is important: "Insert brain here", or in other words, think about what you are doing and use common sense - do a bit more digging as to why the checklist item is there (there's usually a good reason for it being there!) 
      
• "Gates with teeth" / "Should be a funnel - not a tunnel"
  There are a couple of phrases I have come across which highlight the principles behind the gate reviews:
  • "Gates with teeth" - the gates are there for a reason to ensure that the project being reviewed has done what is required by that point in the process. The process is a key component of "risk management" - if the process is not followed then the project is at risk. But remember, this is not to say that the process should stand in the way of a critical project that needs to proceed. However, the risks associated with proceeding need to be actively managed to ensure the project doesn't come unstuck. 
  • "Should be a funnel - not a tunnel" - one of the fundament principles behind stage-gate is that not every product development project that starts is guaranteed to be successful, eg: market not ready, technology issues, etc. So a big part of the early stages of process is determining whether the product is the right one for the company to invest time and money into. A "tunnel" is where every project that starts, proceeds through the development process to the end without being stopped, whether it is going to be a failure or not. A funnel is where you have a lot of ideas coming in the front end of the funnel and as the projects flow through the process, the projects are screened to only let those projects through that have the best chance of being a great success.
    

Any comments on what you have found works / doesn't work?

David Stokes

david.stokes@pdma-nz.org