Stage Gates

Also known as check points or exits.

Stage gates are a response to the paradox that it is only after a project is under way that the true cost and benefit of the project become apparent.

The approach also allows an organization's strategic plans to acknowledge the reality that a lot of projects fail when they would otherwise have to be drafted on the, counter to experience, assumption that all projects underway will succeed,

Under this strategy a project goes a head in stages gaining a green light only for the next stage and not for the project as a whole.  The project can be legitimately brought to an end in a controlled way, as a result of new information, without the stigma of failure.

Typically a stage gate process works as follows.

At the start of a project a number of document lines are agreed upon with familiar names such as budget, cost benefit etc.   It is also agreed by what points the project will be re approved (or not).

At the end of each phase all the documents are brought up to date to reflect what has been discovered and what has happened.  The documents are then presented at a project review meeting where the project sponsor and those responsible for project oversight review the documentation and decide weather or not the project should go forward.  Among other considerations the reviewers look at how the documents have changed since they were presented at earlier reviews.

Typically the decision is not actually made at the review meetings.  What actually happens is that the project manager goes round the review group members finding out what there concerns are and how they can be addressed.  By the time of the actual meeting, group members should already have pretty much made their decision and the documentation should already have been reviewed and brought into line by those who matter.

Although the process sounds like it is designed to kill projects the result is quite the opposite.   The constant presence of the axe focuses peoples minds and causes them to target their efforts at activities which stop the project being canned.

Often an organization will have standard documentation and stage requirements which are applied to all its projects.  This is especially true when projects are an organization's stock in trade.