Stage Gate Process: Phases, Gates, and Steps Explained

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McKinsey’s 2025 analysis of a 16,000-project database found that 8.5 percent hit both their cost and schedule targets. Half a percent delivered every benefit promised at approval. Standish Group’s CHAOS data says something similar, but more bluntly: 31 percent of software projects succeed outright, and half land in the “challenged” column. The stage gate process was built to attack that gap. It splits development into fixed stages and puts a formal decision point between each one. Most teams meet the model when a project stops behaving. Requirements drift. A build scoped for four months is in month nine, the budget conversation has climbed two levels of management, and nobody can name the week the scope actually changed. A custom software development program running several workstreams at once makes that failure mode routine rather than unlucky. Stage gate governance answers that question directly by defining a point at which the project is halted, a cross-functional review board evaluates the evidence, and the project continues or is abandoned. This article covers all six stages, the contents of a gate review, the criteria used by gatekeepers, the four decisions available, and where the stage gate model grinds against Agile delivery. > The stage gate process is a project management methodology which involves breaking down the development process into a number of definite stages with specific gates between them. At each gate, a management team reviews the results of the preceding stage and decides whether to move on to the next stage, abandon the project, halt it for some time, or make other recommendations.

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