A stage-gate new product development program at a US life & annuity carrier: the design, filing and launch of Beacon Index Advantage, a fixed indexed annuity with an optional guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit rider. Five gates, a cross-functional Gate Review Board voting go / cancel / recycle / hold, funding released one stage at a time, and a state insurance department filing route through the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Compact. Fictional company, product and people; the methodology, regulatory route and governance mechanics are real.
Why this program is shown mid-flight — on purpose
The other suites in this portfolio complete. This one is documented at Stage 2 of 4, with three gates still ahead, and that is a deliberate choice rather than an unfinished record.
A completed stage-gate program is indistinguishable from waterfall. Look backward at a launched product and every gate reads GO, the conditions have all closed, the recycle has vanished into the rearview, and four separate funding releases look like one budget. The governance is invisible precisely because it worked. It can only be shown while the decisions are still open — while conditions are outstanding, while money is unreleased, while a gate has not yet met.
The suite still shows how a program closes: the Gate 5 Post-Launch Review is carried as an explicitly labelled illustrative end-state, and the Prior Concept Cancellation Record documents a predecessor concept this same board cancelled at its Gate 1 in August 2025. See How to read this portfolio.
The Programme Story
Six documents record decisions taken over three years, and each is written to stand alone — so none of them tells you the sequence. This does: a predecessor cancelled, a successor re-screened from the first gate, a gate that was recycled, a gate that carried with strings, and three gates still ahead. Seven chapters, plus who decides, how to read the numbers, and three reading routes depending on how long you have.
Governance & Decision Authority
Stage-Gate Governance Model & Gate Review Board Charter
The governing instrument. Board mandate and its explicit limits, five voting seats plus a non-voting chair and CRO observer, quorum and conflict rules, the five gate outcomes defined, the recycle and cancellation protocols, published cancellation thresholds for the gates ahead, tranche-based funding release, and why this program publishes no full-program earned value baseline. 19 sections, 5 parts.
Gate Decision Framework
The assessment standard behind every gate. Must-meet knockout criteria versus weighted should-meet scoring, the evidence standard, the U (unscoreable) rating and why it exists, score bands mapped to the five outcomes, criteria fixed in advance at the prior gate, full criteria for all six gates, and the scored record — including why the Gate 1 recycle was not a low score but an unscoreable one. 15 sections, 3 parts.
Gate 1 Business Case Package
The decision package as it went to the Board at the second convening. Product structure and market, five-year volume forecast, capital strain and return against hurdle, written channel commitments and the premium gap they leave open, a downside case that fails the hurdle, the regulatory route, and the two dissents tabled against the recommendation. Records what changed after the recycle — including a 120 basis point fall in projected return. 19 sections, 5 parts.
Gate 1 Recycle Memorandum
The Chair’s record of the gate that did not carry, issued two business days after it. The two unscoreable findings, an explicit list of what the Board did not find, a root cause the Chair attributes to himself, the itemised $232,000 cost of the loop, and the schedule consequence — the launch date did not move, so development was compressed by six weeks against a fixed end date. 11 sections.
Gate Conditions Register
The live GC-01 to GC-05 record between gates — three closed, two open, one flagged at risk. Each condition carries its owner, the verification method as recorded at issue, the evidence, and a post-closure efficacy finding: did closing it change anything? One did not. GC-04 was correctly specified, verified and closed, and left $17,000,000 of Year 1 premium uncommitted. 10 sections.
Prior Concept Cancellation Record
A programme this same board cancelled. The Harborline Buffer Series — a registered index-linked annuity — passed Gate 0 in March 2025 and was cancelled at Gate 1 that August, carried 1–4. Grounds, the vote including the dissent, all seven cancellation protocol steps executed, final accounting with the unspent tranche returned to capital, and the auditable test for why the successor is a new programme and not a zombie restart. 9 sections.
Gate 0 Concept Screening Package
Where the programme started. A screening gate’s job is to be cheap and to be wrong cheaply — so the operative section is not the recommendation but the six questions Stage 1 was funded to answer, each pre-committed as a Gate 1 must-meet. Preliminary economics are scored 3 and explicitly barred from being carried forward. A point-in-time record: two of its assumptions did not survive Gate 1, and it is not retrofitted to pretend otherwise. 11 sections.
Gate 2 Readiness Assessment · Gate Review Deck · Gate 5 Post-Launch Review.
Product, Regulatory & Program Artifacts
Product Requirements Document · Actuarial Pricing & Assumption Summary · Regulatory Filing Plan · Master Test & Validation Strategy · Launch Readiness Criteria · Distribution & Advisor Enablement Plan · Operations Readiness & Cutover Plan.
Program Charter · Program Budget with tranche release schedule · Cost-Benefit Analysis · Benefits Realization Plan · Resource Plan (90) · Org Chart · Resource-Loaded WBS · RAIDD Log · RACI · Communications Plan · Vendor Management Plan · RTM · Program Dashboard · Weekly Status Report · Methodology Guide · Glossary · Kickoff Deck.