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.
In BRI's methodology the gates are evidence-driven, not calendar-driven: investment is released against a strategy hypothesis's evidence-readiness at each stage, and the evaluation criteria, evidence standards, and survival rates are configurable per portfolio and per project class rather than fixed. Stage-gated innovation is operationalized in Growth Forge® Software as its configurable pipeline and gate-decision tools. For the full treatment — the stages, fidelity levels, and how a gate decision draws on portfolio context — see the Innovation Methodology pillar at /supporting/methodology. Related Terminology Index entries: Stage Gate (the decision point); Pipeline; Fidelity; Survival Rate; DFV.
