The index below includes terms that are frequently used in BRI's resource materials, the Growth Forge software, in the course of performing our services. They may often be used by, and in many cases, coined by other experts and academics working in the new business growth and innovation strategy domain. We started maintaining a collection of them here for the convenience of our clients.
A stage gate is an investment decision point at the end of each pipeline stage, with four possible outcomes in BRI Associates' articulation: Continue to the next stage, Pivot the hypothesis, Pause investment, or Stop the project. It is the mechanism for staged, incremental commitment of resources — releasing more investment only as a strategy hypothesis accumulates the evidence a larger commitment requires. Stop and Pause are first-class outcomes, not failures: they are how a portfolio concentrates resources behind its strongest opportunities.
Stage-gated innovation is an approach to developing new products and businesses in which an opportunity advances through a defined series of stages, each separated by an investment decision point called a stage gate. Rather than funding a venture all at once, the organization commits resources incrementally, increasing its investment only as evidence accumulates and the riskiest uncertainties are resolved. At each gate the decision has four outcomes in BRI Associates' articulation — Continue, Pivot, Pause, or Stop — where Stop and Pause are first-class outcomes, not failures, but the mechanism by which a portfolio concentrates investment behind its strongest opportunities.
Staging is one of the six dimensions of the BRI Strategy Framework. It describes how the strategy choices across all the other dimensions within a strategy hypothesis are intended to change over time, based on defined triggering conditions — what the organization will do first, what it sequences for later, and what events or evidence move it from one posture to the next. Most strategy frameworks capture a single snapshot; Staging makes the planned evolution of the strategy an explicit, first-class part of the hypothesis.
A brief statement summarizing the fundamental environmental changes impacting a strategy hypothesis, the role the organization aspires to play within those dynamics, and the value that role brings. Should be clear and communicable to an outsider with minimal explanation.
A description of what a project aspires to achieve. May be described at varying levels of fidelity and typically includes a strategy objective, environmental catalysts, a Statement of Strategic Intent (SOSI), and strategy metrics.
A cohesive set of consequential choices made to achieve a goal or objective. A clear goal and measurable definition of success are paramount — without them, there is no basis for evaluating the relative merit of alternatives.
