Stage and Gate

Overview

Oftentimes, organizations have many sources for ideas but a difficult time getting them from ideation to realization in an efficient, trackable manner. The Stage and Gate project management technique is a way to both organize and track projects as well as identify risks at an early point in a project's implementation. Stage and Gate achieves this by breaking down projects into discrete steps (Stages) that have deliverables and collaboration, followed by a decision point (Gate) to determine if the project is ready for the next iteration.

The challenge comes from when you have dynamic project workflows that need to adapt to change in your business, and need to be tailored towards your specific organization's needs. That’s where the Stage and Gate Application comes in. With Stage and Gate, business users can create and maintain custom workflows without the need for developer teams for a wide range of business needs, for example:

• Product Development
• Deal Desk and Sales Pipelines
• Employee Onboarding
• Proposal Response
• and many more!

Key Features & Functionality

The application allows power users to:

• Easily and quickly set up custom stage-gate workflows without any development effort
• Set up any number of unique stages while having any number of gate approvers at each individual stage
• Define who can view, facilitate, and administer each stage-gate workflow
• Define custom templates for users to fill in while completing the stage, tie SLAs to stages, and create tasks that need to be completed at each stage
• Define the type of voting style a gate should require, whether a vote-based, sequential, or automatic type voting style
• View status of all projects across the organization in a centralized view

Users can:

• Review and complete all currently outstanding task items
• Review and complete all currently outstanding approval tasks
• Review and complete all currently outstanding stages
• See all upcoming due dates for stages assigned to them and view statistics on previously created and completed stage-gate processes
• Have an audit history of all changes that have been made in the system

Benefits & Business Impact

The benefits of our solution is that it is a turn-key Stage-Gate solution that requires no custom development to set up. It is highly configurable and can accommodate any style of stage-gate workflow while providing a central location to manage all of these styles of processes. It provides users with a simple, easy-to-understand dashboard, allowing them to see all tasks, stages, and approvals that need to be completed while providing them the ability to see upcoming due dates and summary statistics on stage-gate workflows. Since it resides on the Appian platform, it can easily be integrated with other Appian applications within their technical ecosystem.

The business Impact of our solution is similar to its benefits. It requires no development time to create custom stage-gate workflows while allowing all these workflows to be managed and seen in a central location. This saves development costs for the organization while unifying and simplifying their technical ecosystem. It acts as a stepping stone for an organization's digital transformation process, allowing them to move away from simpler solutions and adds structure and auditability around their workflows. This structure aims to standardize their processes, improve their tracking capabilities, and help users view and prioritize outstanding work items.