As an evolution of the phased approach to project management, the Phase-Gate Process has gained wide acceptance for managing complex projects, especially those requiring intricate multifunctional integration (LaPlate & Alter, 1994; Neves, Summe, & Uttal, 1990; O‘Connor, 1994; Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1993). As graphically shown for a typical product development in Exhibit 1, the process provides a template or road map for guiding projects, such as new product developments, from idea to launch and beyond. One of the prime objectives is to use phase-gate processes for making the project cycle and its performance more predictable, that is, to minimize downstream uncertainty, risk and complications (LaPlate & Alter, 1994; O‘Connor, 1994; Noori, Munro, & Deszca, 1997; Iansiti & MacCormack, 1997; Sobek, Liker, & Ward 1998). Initially, the process must be defined as a procedure that identifies specific activity phases or stages, common to a class of projects. In the example of Exhibit 1, new product developments go through five phases: (1) concept development, (2) detailed design, (3) pilot production, (4) product launch and marketing, and (5) field support. Each phase or stage is defined in terms of principle scope, objectives, activities and deliverables, as well as functional responsibilities. Further, each stage leads into a gate, which defines the specific criteria and results that must be met for the project to succeed in the next stage and beyond. If designed properly, these gates validate through multifunctional reviews, all necessary “conditions for future success.” As an example, the gate succeeding the Concept Phase could be designed to validate such criteria as producability, testability, reparability, quality parameters, available licenses, and profit targets.
For procedural simplicity, the phase-gate process is usually presented as a serial, step-by-step method. However, its application is to both serial as well as parallel work processes, including concurrent engineering, design-builds, fast tracking and multi-organizational joint developments. To conceptionalize such concurrent application, one can envision each stage as a bar or time line on a Gantt chart, as shown in Exhibit 1. Time lines can be overlapping or running completely parallel to each other. Furthermore, gates are not necessarily positioned at the end of a time line, but can occur anywhere during the activity cycle of the stage. One of the critical elements of the phase-gate concept is the review process associated with each gate. Not only must the gate metrics be designed to validate the correctness of the current project approach, but also equally important, the review process, its people, environment, and leadership must be conducive to a dynamic and candid assessment of the project and its performance against the final objectives and success parameters. Moreover, an important criteria for the phase-gate process to work, is the ability of task leaders in “downstream” phases to define the gate criteria for those phases on which they depend as “customers.” In addition, these task leaders not only define the gate criteria, but also guide the upstream activities toward desired results. This is often accomplished by participating in project— and design reviews, by soliciting and providing feedback on work-in-progress, and by cross-functional involvement in interface definitions and technology transfer processes. Interface charts, such as shown in Exhibit 1, can help to support these interface definitions by graphically showing the specific inputs and outputs required during the various phases of a product development process.
