Stage+Gates

Choosing an opportunity to pursue: the Stage Gate product development process
Thursday, February 10, 2011 <>

Topic overview:
For the past three weeks we have explored tools and techniques for finding Product Opportunity Gaps (POGs) -- places where there customer needs, wants, and desires are not being met by the products and services currently available in the marketplace. The next step in bringing an innovative new product or service to market is selecting which of the POGs represent the most promising opportunities for your organization to pursue. Fortunately, organizations have many tools available to help make these decisions.

In class today we will introduce the Stage Gate product development process. Many organizations use some variation on this process to select their most promising opportunities to pursue, and to do so in a way that directs investment towards the most promising ideas. The basic idea of this process is that the process for bringing an innovative product or service to market goes through a series of //stages// in an organization. So far, we have looked only at the Identify the Opportunity stage. To proceed from one stage to the next, the project must pass through a Gate review, wherein the project team and an appropriate collection of stakeholders review the proposal from the project team and decide whether to move the project to the next stage, cancel the project, or put the project on hold.

By the end of today's class you should:
 * Understand the concept of stages and gates in the Stage Gate process
 * Understand why organizations use a structured method such as Stage Gate to direct their innovation investments efficiently and effectively.
 * Understand how an organization can use scenarios to illustrate a Product Opportunity Gap, the Job Statements, and the Value Opportunities that underlie the POG proposed for further investigation.

Preparation for class:

 * Prior to class you need to read chapter 1 of [CE09] - Successful Product Innovation, by Robert G. Cooper and Scott J. Edgett. The reading is available through digital reserve on this course's Blackboard site, located in the Course Documents section. **

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