Integrating Agile with Stage Gate How New Agile Scrum Methods Lead to Faster and Better Innovation. Recent experiences show that Agile project management methods can be used in the innovation process and has a great potential to reduce development time and increase the success rate of new products. The article briefly outlines how an Agile method, such as Scrum, can be used within a structured innovation process with milestones and decision points, such as Stage Gate, and what benefits it provides to both manufacturers and service providers. The product innovation process has traditionally been undertaken using a gated model, consisting of a series of defined stages and gates or GoKill decisions points. Such Stage Gate processes were developed to deal with the random and disorganized, often chaotic, approach to new product development, once prevalent in many major firms and which is still a challenge for too many small and medium sized companies. A typical gated model is shown in Figure 1. A structured gating process for product innovation has clear benefits Such a system allows management to select the best ideas and projects with more insight and knowledge it also reduces the risk and costs of project failure and increases the chance of new products success. An exciting new development in the field of innovation management combines the principles and methods of Agile project management whose origins lie in the software development world with the tried and proven Stage Gate method for the development of new services and physical products. Recent evidence shows that this new hybrid approach speeds up the innovation process, makes it more flexible and iterative, and ensures a measurable output early in the process. A solid and proven model for Agile innovation for manufactured products does not exist yet such as the traditional Stage Gate model. Early adopters experiences, however, reveal how to practice this hybrid model for new physical product development, and also prove that it works. Such early experiences also identify some key challenges and inconsistencies that one must be aware of before implementation. Why Stage Gate is a Relevant Model for Product Innovation. Stage Gate is a widely used model for product development and innovation An estimated 7. U. S. companies have adopted Stage Gate, and in Europe, most major manufacturers use a version of Stage Gate. The benefits of Stage Gate can be summarized as follows. Stage Gate is A risk mitigating system, by breaking the investment decision process into a series of stages, separated by GoKill decision points gates. This gated and incremental commitment approach ensures that poor projects are identified and killed early, thereby reducing the chances of continuing to invest in a bad project. DevOps, Continuous Delivery, Maven, Gradle, Jenkins, Artifactory, SonarQube, Build Management, Java, Agile, Scrum, Extreme Programming, SCM, Software Configuration. A simple decision model, where gates are based on defined criteria and pre specified deliverables. At gates, designated gatekeepers management make go forward decisions, investment decisions, and prioritize and commit resources across ideas and across development projects. A transparent process from idea to launch everyone can see what the requirements are for good ideas and for projects to proceed by way of decision criteria and scorecards, as well as who decides the gatekeepers. A comprehensive set of methods, tools and templates developed for each stage and gate, such as templates for idea description, concept description, business case, evaluation scorecards, launch plan, how to run a gate meeting, how to score ideas, how to build in voice of customer, etc. A portfolio management system built in, to manage the entire pipeline of ideas and projects. Portfolio management in Stage Gate is based on economic methods such as NPV Net Present Value, IRR Internal rate of Return and the Productivity Index PI, as well as qualitative methods such as scorecards. Stage Gate provides evaluation methods for ideas and projects and the tools to decide stop, go, hold or go back. A system with proven results and built in best practices Companies using Stage Gate have more success in developing and launching new products than companies that do not use Stage Gate. A well known and implemented model many people have been trained over the past 2. Stage Gate every day. An adaptive and scalable method Stage Gate can be scaled and applied to different types and sizes of projects and organizations see Figure 2. There are also versions of Stage Gate for process development and technology development projects. Stage Gate thus remains a highly relevant model for managing product and service innovation. In the last decade, many companies have made their Stage Gate system leaner by analyzing the value stream, simplifying the process, streamlining deliverables, and removing non value added activities. In most cases, a more efficient and leaner innovation process has been the result. Lean has not solved all the challenges, however Issues remain, for example, dealing with uncertainties and ambiguity coping with rapidly changing customer needs and wants and accommodating the realities of a faster paced world where plans often change. Experience have demanded that Stage Gate become more adaptive, more agile, and more accelerated. A New Approach The Agile Stage Gate Hybrid Model. A new approach namely integrating principles and methods from Agile project management into Stage Gate promises to deal with these challenges and appears to yield dramatic performance results. As noted in a recent Research Technology Management article Indeed, integrating Agile Scrum methods into Stage Gate to yield this new AgileStage Gate hybrid model may be the most exciting and significant change to the new product process since the introduction of gating systems more than 3. Why First, because this novel Agile Stage Gate hybrid approach provides a framework for dealing with uncertainties and ambiguity in the front end, accelerates the process through the use of time boxed iterations, and focuses on the results via development of tangible product increments as the measure of progress. the new hybrid method can be used in all stages from Discovery ideation to Launch. Second, the new method also has a major potential for increasing success rates of new products the model requires that the project team interact with users and customers, starting in very early stages, thus getting valuable feedback and early market validation. Finally, Agile Stage Gate is not rocket science. Rather, Agile Scrum is fairly straightforward to employ as a working method as part of the stages of Stage Gate. Moreover, although usually initially deployed in the two technical stages, namely Testing and Development in Figure 1, the new hybrid method can be used in all stages from Discovery ideation to Launch, as shown in Figure 3. Agile Project Management Some Background. Agile project management is based on principles from The Agile Manifesto see Figure 4. Agile was developed in reaction to major failures using the dominant waterfall way of managing large IT projects. Waterfall focused on the big, long term goal the final product and its major features. But requirements tend to change rapidly in IT projects the features and criteria defined when the project was initially planned often were no longer valid by the end of a 1. Agile Project Management Learn Project Management Concepts using simple and precise free downloadable tutorials. Prepare for PMI certification and become an.
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