The Stage Gate Process
Halting a project is not an act of cowardice, but a strategic defensive move to protect capital; emotional attachment to a failing project is the silent harbinger of bankruptcy.
The greatest catastrophe in product development is the "Sunk Cost Fallacy"—the illusion of "we've already spent so much money, we might as well finish it." The Stage-Gate Process is the insurance system that saves companies from this fatal error. It divides the process into logical stages and places impassable checkpoints (Gates) between them. If a project fails to meet the ruthless criteria at these gates, it is immediately killed.
The decisions made at the gates are clear-cut: Go, Kill, Hold, or Recycle. The Gatekeepers consist of executives who have no emotional attachment to the project, focusing entirely on market data and cost analysis. For an idea to progress to a prototype, and a prototype to mass production, it must crack the codes of "business unit approval," "technical feasibility," and "financial profitability" at these gates.
