Most organizations today have at least one, if not several, ‘digital transformation’ initiatives underway. What was considered leading edge 5 years ago is fast becoming an exercise in survival with recent polls indicating that 70%+ of US based companies plan to introduce a new digital technology platform, digitize their products (i.e. physical, software, and hybrid) and/or digitize their innovation management processes. As expected, some organizations are succeeding while many are struggling. What are the successful organizations doing differently? Stage-Gate International has been helping organizations digitize their innovations and their innovation management processes for 12+ years through an open software certification program launched in 2007 called Stage-Gate® Ready (digital technologies certified by innovation experts). This article demystifies digital transformation and explores what a successful journey looks like when you use the Stage-Gate Framework, its Innovation Maturity Model and its culture change-enabling principles to manage the three most common types of digital initiatives.

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USING STAGE-GATE®
TO ENABLE
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SUCCESS
BY MICHELLE JONES, COLIN PALOMBO, AND DR. SCOTT EDGETT
ost organizations today have at least one,
if not several, ‘digital transformation’
initiatives underway. What was
considered leading edge but 5 years ago is fast
becoming an exercise in survival. Recent polls
indicate that 70%+ of US based companies plan to
introduce a new digital technology platform,
digitize their products (i.e. physical, software, and
hybrid) or digitize their innovation management
processes. As expected, some organizations are
succeeding while others are struggling. What are
successful organizations doing differently?
Stage-Gate International has been helping
organizations digitize their innovations and their
innovation management processes for 12+ years
through an open software certification program
launched in 2007 called Stage-Gate Ready®
(digital technologies certified by innovation
experts). This article demystifies digital
transformation and examines what a successful
journey looks like when you use the Stage-Gate
Framework, its Innovation Maturity Model and its
culture change-enabling principles to manage the
three most common types of digital innovation
initiatives.
Over the years we have learned what works
and what doesn’t when it comes to digital
platforms and digitizing products and their
development processes. As a result, we have
shaped what is considered the ‘emerging dominant
Stage-Gate Framework’, also known as Stage-
Gate 5G (Fifth Generation).
Companies with Stage-Gate 5G capability
have successfully transformed their innovation
portfolios and in advanced cases such as Corning,
3M and PepsiCo, have transformed their
organizations in the process1
.
Digital Demystified
Welcome to the fourth industrial revolution, aka
Digital Revolution or Industry 4.0. A transition that
began in 1975, continuing through present-day,
reveals an exciting marketplace capitalizing on a
wide range of emerging digital technologies
including; mobile, artificial intelligence, machine
learning, big data, additive manufacturing, digital
twins, cloud, cognitive computing, connectivity and
more. As new as this phenomenon seems, three
other such revolutions have occurred prior to this
one, each with similar periods of rapid
developments applying emerging technologies in
pursuit of creating new customer and company
value.
Traditionally, companies have looked to their
R&D organization to lead and navigate the
exploration and commercialization of new
technology. This is still true today, but is more
complex now as many digital technologies also
promise benefits to function-specific processes in
Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Manufacturing,
Production, Operations, Finance, Project
Management and so on. The simultaneous interest
by all functions makes the ‘digital transformation
journey’ a real team sport as numerous seemingly
disparate projects are connected and advancing
M

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the same organizational goal: accelerate value
creation (for customers and the company) by
leveraging digital technology through continuous
innovation.
Three Types of Digital Transformation Initiatives
Embracing and managing the plethora of digital
technologies can be overwhelming, especially for
non-technical managers. However, if you examine
closely, a pattern appears, making it easier for the
innovation leader to strategize, manage, support
and in many cases, lead their company’s digital
transformation. Innovation leaders can provide
much needed organization, direction and guidance
for three types of digital initiatives:
1. Digitize Products and Services
Organizations continue to find new ways to
apply digital technology to their core product and
service offerings to create new value for their
customers (think smart, connected products and
digital-based service experiences). This type of
initiative is of particular interest to Business Unit
leaders as they are accountable for short to
medium term revenue growth and for
maintaining a competitive market position.
The most common mistake we observe with
companies pursuing this type of initiative is their
failure to update the product innovation process
with the newly participating software
development function’s work stream activities.
Many companies lost valuable time debating
whether the incumbent Stage-Gate process
should be used or the new function’s Agile
process. The answer is YES. Stage-Gate is a
function-neutral business process that
coordinates all of the disciplines and their
respective practices, while bringing visibility and
oversight to the innovation pipeline. This enables
a company’s leadership team to manage
innovation strategically. Whereas Agile is a
collection of development and project
management practices used in software
development. If you are going to digitize your
products, you must roll out the welcome mat to
your newest contributing function, software
development, or supply partner if you choose to
outsource. Stage-Gate 5G reflects the ideal
combination and balance of both2
.
2. Digital Technology Platforms
Organizations can create a significant competitive
advantage by establishing unique digital platforms
that enable new lines of differentiated products and
services. Examples include online business models
or digital channels, additive and AI-supported
manufacturing processes, e-learning for JIT
distribution and sales support, etc. Successfully
completing these types of initiatives itself does not
generate new revenue. However, the products and
services made possible because of new platforms
do generate new revenue. It is important to bring
visibility to this portfolio of digital game changers so
business leaders can get behind the technology,
sponsor its development and plan strategically to
leverage it in their lines of business. Too often, these
projects are managed in isolation and ‘unveiled’ far
too late, making it difficult to sufficiently ready the
organization to embrace the new technology and
successfully manage the impact of the change on
their operations and on their customers. This type of
initiative is of particular interest to the Chief
Technology Officer (CTO) or Head of R&D as they
are accountable to sponsor medium to longer-term
revenue growth and to create new organizational
capabilities and competencies that provide lasting,
competitive advantage. However, as noted earlier,
as every function is exploring the potential of digital
technology, some department-led ‘digital’ projects
may actually qualify as new platforms.
The most common mistake we observe by
companies pursuing this type of initiative is their
failure to apply a best practice innovation process to
this particular class of innovation. Many companies
simply fail to recognize the technology as a platform
opportunity when it is an early concept idea. As a
result, many digital platform projects are
mismanaged: they struggle through development,
exceed timeline and budget targets, lack
organizational buy-in and do not achieve their
potential or performance goal.
The Stage-Gate Technology Development
process is purpose-built to guide new platform
development projects. Companies using Stage-Gate
TD more easily recognize these important
opportunities and manage them accordingly and
successfully. The Stage-Gate Technology
Development Model was first introduced in 2007 by
co-founder Dr. Robert Cooper with Exxon Chemical
Research and Development to de-risk new-to-the

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company and develop new-to-the-world
technology-based platform projects3
. Management
desired one common framework to manage all
projects strategically, but recognized the importance
of adapting Stage-Gate to the unique context of
each innovation project class. Therefore, a Stage-
Gate Model was adapted for the Technology
Development innovation project class:
- Emphasis placed on early, experiment-based
Stages designed to accelerate learning where no
previous in-company knowledge existed. When
one cannot draw upon existing knowledge to
design a solution, several small experiments can
accelerate learning.
- Emphasis placed on non-financial Go/Kill
criteria including strategic impact, technical
feasibility, leverage, and potential to open new
windows of opportunity, in recognition that the
new technology platform itself does not directly
generate revenue.
- Introduction of the Applications Pathway
Gate, a strategic investment decision and point of
alignment, as platforms can significantly change
the company and competitive landscape.
Broader buy-in is critical to enable speed. The
cross-functional team of Gatekeepers evaluate
the de-risked technology and its platform
potential (i.e. its numerous applications).
Priorities are road-mapped and the new product,
service or process project(s) enter their
appropriate Stage-Gate®
process pathway.
Stage-Gate 5G de-risks new digital
technologies and accelerates platform time to
profit by routing derivative projects to the right
pathway of process rigor right sized to project
class risk.
3. Digitize Innovation Management Processes
The earliest form of digital transformation is the
continuing effort to move each department’s work
processes and productivity tools into software
applications. These tools can enable a more
streamlined, data driven, connected information
sharing and decision-supported experience.
Additionally, some processes perform best when
they span multiple departments across the
business (i.e. enterprise-wide), allowing for cross-
functional, team-based collaboration. Innovation
Management is one such process. The entire
Innovation Management Framework can be
supported efficiently and effectively with software
that has the right enabling technology:
communicate strategy, capture ideas, support the
collaborative process of idea to launch
communication and deliverables, enable
prioritization decision-support for Gate meetings,
resource allocation/assignment, and display
project data in visual portfolio views to monitor
strategic progress. This type of digital initiative is
of particular interest to Heads of Innovation as
they are accountable for innovation results. It is
also of interest to Chief Information Officers (CIO)
as they are accountable for optimizing operational
efficiency (cost savings) and organization-wide
information decision-support effectiveness.
The most common mistake we observe with
companies pursuing this type of initiative is failure
to look beyond the bells and whistles of the
technology itself to manage the project as a change
initiative to transform the way you manage and
execute innovation. Far too many organizations’
product innovation efforts have degenerated into
mechanical form-filling and box-checking data
entry after implementing software. The digitized
innovation process should enable excellence not
inhibit it.
To date, more than 500 companies have
successfully digitized innovation through the
Stage-Gate Ready Certification Program4
. Some of
the most successful implementations used an
adaptation of their own Stage-Gate process to
guide their way. They conducted a Scoping Stage
to discover available software solutions and short-
list the best vendors. They then went on to conduct
a Business Case Stage to evaluate vendor options
and confirm the cost benefit for financial and user
satisfaction. They used Gate 3 ‘the Money Gate’ to
gain full cross-functional buy-in and funding for to
the project and the anticipated changes to the way
they managed innovation. They conducted a
Development Stage to design improvements to
their innovation process and held a Design Review
to validate its high-quality design capable of
driving better performance results before
configuring it into the new software. Agile project
techniques proved useful to break this stage down
into several smaller sprints. They conducted the
Scale-Up Stage by stress-testing the functionality
in each user area to confirm all was ready for a full
rollout, with user acceptance and ease of adoption
high on the list of success criteria. Careful

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consideration was given to not disrupt or delay new
product projects that were on the verge of
launching. They were exempt from participating.
Finally, a proper Go-Live (Launch) Stage equipped
fully with change management and
implementation support was executed ensuring a
seamless introduction of the new innovation
process with enabling software technology. A few
months’ post launch, these companies were
disciplined in performing a Post-Launch Review to
confirm that they had indeed delivered what they
promised in the business case. If there were
variances, as there often are, they were well
understood and learnings shared so they could be
applied elsewhere in the company.
5G builds on Stage-Gate’s classic, incremental,
alignment-building techniques proven to manage
successful change. Additionally, it incorporates
change techniques that enable digital
transformation.
Implications for Innovation Leaders
The Digital Revolution has already sparked a
tremendous transformational change in the print
media, automotive, travel, music, retail, financial,
software and manufacturing markets. This has in
turn, sparked change in most organizations by now
in the form of evolving business strategies and/or the
pursuit of the three types of digital transformation
initiatives. Many polls confirm that most business
leaders agree that the rate of change occurring
within their organization today is far greater than in
previous years. Unfortunately, for many, their focus
on the technology itself and/or on agile project
management alone has not provided sufficient,
systematic oversight or change management
support to ready the organization for successful
transformation.
 An increase in the number, type and complexity
of projects, but a lack of visibility across all to
manage strategically
 More projects competing for limited resources,
but a lack of effective allocation and
prioritization
 Too many similar projects ‘starting from scratch’,
a need for a reliable process or roadmap to act
as guardrails
 Misalignment across leaders and functions as
strategies are changing rapidly and as
functional workstreams change and impact
cross-functional collaboration.
“We want to do the right projects, and we
want to do them right. Right Projects Right.
The Stage-Gate®
Innovation Performance
Framework®
helps us to do just that.”
Stage-Gate®
Innovation Performance Framework
Organizations that have committed to continuously
evolve their Stage-Gate Innovation Performance
Framework from 1st
Generation to current 5th
Generation are now using it to successfully digitize
their products, platforms, portfolios, and their
innovation processes. In some advanced cases, they
are transforming their organizations. You can
prepare your organization to significantly move the
performance needle by maturing your Stage-Gate
capability in the same way.
Stage-Gate 5G integrates the 4 drivers of proven
innovation performance along with advanced
change management and agile project management
practices. An organization that has the discipline to
apply the framework is offering their leaders,
functional departments and teams a proven, best-in-
class method of working collaboratively to bring
about successful innovation and transformation.
One Common Framework and Language
Stage-Gate is a function-neutral business process
designed to accelerate value creation within an
organization. It coordinates each function’s
contribution via their respective best practices, from

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idea to launch, while bringing visibility and oversight
to the innovation pipeline. This enables a company’s
leadership team to manage innovation strategically,
while teams execute innovation internally or with
external partners, tactically.
One Model Flexibly Applied
The versatility of the Stage-Gate Innovation
Performance Framework enables it to scale by right-
sizing process rigor to project context and risk. This
enables organizations to manage a diverse portfolio
of innovation projects in a similar way while
specializing and adapting at the tactical level with
each class of innovation project.
Rapid Learning
Organizations become better and faster at surfacing
the most meritorious projects and accelerating their
successful development and launch because Stage-
Gate itself develops the organizational capability for
rapid learning and adjustment. At the project level,
teams learn by applying their new knowledge to a
series of mini experiments and adjust accordingly in
their search for the winning innovation. At the
company level, learnings from each project’s success
or failure is captured and is retained within the
process to reflect ‘organizational memory’ for other
projects to benefit by.
Visibility
Stages and Gates isolate the meaningful metrics
necessary to visualize projects as a pipeline or in a
portfolio view. This visibility enables senior leaders
to monitor the progress of all projects so resource
allocation decisions and project prioritization can
occur dynamically and with agility at Gates or
quarterly reviews and reflect the business strategy.
High Performance Teams
The cross-functional nature of each Stage and Gate
draws in the necessary expertise and experience
needed to develop winning, highly differentiated
offerings in a highly collaborative environment.
Speed
Stage-Gate accelerates performance through a
variety of speed-enabling practices: a documented
process path to guide projects of similar class so
they never start from scratch, a preliminary risk
assessment and classification so projects receive the
right amount of process rigor for their risk level
(never over or under managed), by focusing on high
value activities that shape and define the winning
product definition up front and by doing so cross-
functionally in the Stages and at the Gates to build
alignment across key stakeholders.

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Risk Management
The incremental investment model via each Gate
together with project selection transparency and
risk-reducing information deliverables gives
business leaders and team’s confidence to take
calculated risks inherent with more venturesome
projects.
Agile
Stage-Gate®
5G builds on the best Agile and Scrum
techniques resulting in the ultimate, balanced
framework to drive innovation performance within
medium and large organizations. Sprints within
Stages creates a shorter-term, team-based bias for
action, whereas the project management practices
bring visibility and organization to team-based work
efforts.
Transformational Change Model
The alignment-building Stages and Gates, the
gradually expanding team, the early requirement to
justify the case to proceed and the empowering and
engaging team activities for customers and the
internal organization alike, all set the stage to ready
the organization to support change and innovation.
Digital Transformation Model
Stage-Gate gives business leaders and teams the
confidence to pursue digital technologies that the
company is not familiar with because it lays out an
alignment-building process of discovery through to
application. The business leaders participating at the
Go/Kill decision Gates, and the people and projects
participating in the Stages, are ‘on the same team’
executing the same goal: surface the best digital
opportunities, de-risk the technology and accelerate
its application so both customers and the company
create new value.
Next Steps:
Getting Your Organization to Stage-Gate 5G
Enable your organization to significantly ‘move the
innovation performance needle’ by evolving your
Stage-Gate Innovation Management Framework to
next generation.
Start by plotting your current maturity onto the
Stage-Gate Innovation Performance Framework
Maturity Model (previous page).
- What generation is your Stage-Gate®
(y-axis)?
- How proficient is your organization’s adoption of
Stage-Gate best management practices (x-axis)?

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Using Stage-Gate®
to Enable Digital
Transformation Success
Embracing and managing digital technologies can
be overwhelming, however, if you examine closely,
a pattern appears, making it easier for the
innovation leader to strategize, manage, support
and in many cases, lead their company’s digital
transformation. Innovation leaders can provide
much needed organization, direction and
guidance for all three types of digital initiatives by
adopting the Stage-Gate Innovation Performance
Framework or by committing to mature your
current generation Stage-Gate framework.
Contact authors michelle.jones@stage-gate.com
or colin.palombo@stage-gate.com to learn more
and to help your organization get started.
About Stage-Gate International
Companies of all sizes, and across all industries
around the world look to Stage-Gate International
for help to improve their new product innovation
success. Whether you are developing new
technology, service or product innovations
(physical, digital or hybrid) for the first time, are
targeting specific improvements to your already
high performance innovation program, or want to
modernize by digitizing and integrating your
innovation management processes and tools, we
have a reliable solution that will work for you.
Stage-Gate International enables companies to
drive organizational excellence in product
innovation.
References and Notes
1. Annual Stage-Gate Summit Case Studies.
Presentations by Corning, 3M + Pepsico 2010-2018.
2. Robert G. Cooper and Anita Friis Sommer, “Agile
Stage-Gate for Manufacturers”, Research-Technology
Management”. Research-Technology Management
61:2, Mar – April 2018, pp. 17-26.
3. Robert G. Cooper, “Managing Technology
Development Projects” IEE Engineering Management
Review. Vol 35, No 1 First Quarter 2007, pp. 67-76
4. Michelle Jones and Dr. Scott J. Edgett, “Ten Tips for
Successfully Implementing a Stage-Gate Product
Innovation Process”, Stage-Gate International, 2013
5. Michelle Jones, “Stage-Gate: The Quintessential
Decision Factory”, Stage-Gate International, 2019
6. Michelle Jones, “Stage-Gate Agility Plus 3 Agile Hacks
Worth Considering”, Stage-Gate International, 2018
7. Robert G. Cooper, “What’s Next? After Stage-Gate”
“What’s next? After Stage-Gate” Research-Technology
Management, Vol 157, No. 1, Jan-Feb 2014, pp 20-31
8. Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler,” Bold: How to
Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World”,
Exponential Technology Series Paperback, Feb. 2016
9. The Stage-Gate®
Ready Certification Software
Program. See www.stage-gate.com
About the Authors
Colin Palombo is Group Head, North
America and Chief Consulting Officer
of Stage-Gate International, and a
visiting Professor of Innovation of
Strathclyde University, Scotland. Colin
helps clients improve results with best-
practice innovation governance,
processes and software.
Michelle Jones is Chief Research,
Development and Learning Officer. Her
portfolio includes strategic business
partnerships, product management and
marketing. She solves innovation
management problems that require
unique solutions and leads research
that brings value to Stage-Gate users.
Dr. Scott Edgett is internationally
recognized as one of the world’s top
experts in innovation management. An
author, high-profile speaker and
executive advisor, he is the pioneer of
innovation portfolio management and
the Innovation Performance Framework
for executives.