ABSTRACT
The Innovation Stage-Gate is an adaptation of the standard Stage-Gate product development process, originally developed by Bob Cooper and colleagues. The Innovation Stage-Gate seeks to bridge the two and to address the concerns that naturally arise with Lean Startup. In many ways, the Innovation Stage-Gate' is simply an unraveling of the key areas of focus in the Lean Startup triangle. The entire focus of an Innovation Stage-Gate is learning: Learning about customer needs and new ways of meeting them; learning about business risks and how to allay them; and learning about the business in the market before moving to scale. Making an Innovation Stage-Gate work in practice takes people with the skills and resources to succeed. The most important thing for a company is to define the roles that are required for innovation and the skills those roles require.
