Often, emerging companies depend on the vision of their founding members to design and launch first products. Those that make it are often as lucky as they are good. Product innovation is too critical to be left to chance. Every successful company employs some form of a rigorous process product development that its employees understand and use.

In this course, the stage-gate process is presented as a formal method of new product development. Based on the work done by Robert Cooper, a professor at McMaster University, Ontario, it is now the method used by more than 60% of all companies.

How it works
New product development begins with an idea and ends with the launch of a product. The steps in-between can be viewed as a systematic product development process. Stage-Gate® divides this process into a series of stages. Key components for success are the constant voice-of-the-customer inputs to formation and development of the product, as well as the quality and completeness of the entire process from beginning to end.

Stages
Each stage contains a set of prescribed and concurrent activities, incorporating industry best practices.

• Discovery – creating and finding new ideas and opportunities
• Scoping – conducting preliminary research on the Discovery stage
• Business case – developing the detailed case for final decision
• Development – designing and developing the product
• Testing and Validation – trial marketing and product beta programs
• Launch – product commercialization

Gates
Gates are the points in the process where a decision must be made. The gate-keepers can choose to Go, Kill, Hold, or Recycle the project.

Gatekeepers
Gatekeepers are the team of senior management who make Go/Kill decisions at the gates.

This course will examine each stage and its component parts. Students will leave with a good understanding of the most popular new product development process today.