Stage-Gate Methodology Guide

Lighthouse Financial Services Company — This guide explains the methodology behind the Beacon Index Advantage program for a reader who does not already know stage-gate new product development: what a gate is, where the framework comes from, what it costs to run a program this way, and how it differs from the waterfall, agile and hybrid methodologies used elsewhere in this portfolio. It is a reference document, not a decision package — it does not change when a gate convenes, unlike the Gate 2 Readiness Assessment or the Gate Conditions Register.

1. Methodology at a Glance

Stage-gate (sometimes phase-gate) splits a development program into stages of funded work separated by gates — formal decision points where a cross-functional board reviews evidence and chooses one of five outcomes: GO, GO WITH CONDITIONS, RECYCLE, HOLD, or CANCEL. The defining difference from a waterfall program plan is not the work itself — pricing, filing, building, testing and launching a product happen in some order under any methodology — it is that funding and the right to continue are earned at each gate rather than approved once at the start. No stage begins until the gate ahead of it releases its tranche, and no tranche is released until the evidence supports it.

Each gate applies a two-tier test: a short list of must-meet criteria evaluated first as a pass/fail knockout, then a weighted should-meet score on a 1–5 scale (plus a U for unscoreable, where no defensible evidence exists yet). Full criteria, weights and score bands live in the Gate Decision Framework; this guide covers the shape of the method, not its arithmetic.

2. The Gate Structure — Five Gates, Four Stages, Tranche Funding

Two rules discipline the structure. First, criteria for Gate N are fixed at Gate N−1 and recorded in that gate's minute — a team cannot be judged against a bar invented after the money is spent, and cannot negotiate the bar down once results disappoint. Second, a stage can recycle: this program's Gate 1 did, once, when two criteria came back U rather than a low score (Framework §14) — a distinction this methodology insists on, because a low score records disagreement about quality, and a U records that no defensible evidence exists yet. Treating the two the same lets a program talk its way past a gap that was never actually closed.

3. Where Stage-Gate Comes From

Stage-gate traces to Robert G. Cooper's work on new product development process, published from the early 1980s onward and refined through several editions since. Cooper's canonical gate outcomes are four — proceed, stop, hold and recycle — with a conditional proceed recognized as a fifth in later editions. This program labels the same five decisions GO, CANCEL, HOLD, RECYCLE and GO WITH CONDITIONS; the framework literature uses a blunter one-syllable word where this program says CANCEL, and the decision carries identical authority and effect under either label (Governance Model §9 explains the naming choice in full). The program-management layer sitting on top of the gate structure — the charter, budget, resource plan, RAIDD log and status reporting — follows PMI practice, the same body of practice behind the PMP credential and the other program-management artifacts in this portfolio. Stage-gate governs whether the program continues; PMI practice governs how it is run while it does. The two are not competing methodologies — a mature stage-gate program needs both, which is why this suite, alone in the portfolio, carries a Gate Review Board and a conventional program management office underneath it.

4. Regulatory Grounding Behind the Product

None of the following is decorative. Every regulatory reference in this suite is one a program manager on an annuity launch would actually need to know, and none go deeper than a program manager can defend without pretending to be an actuary or an attorney.

Why an FIA and not a RILA (Registered Index-Linked Annuity, Decision D-01): a RILA is a registered security and would bring SEC registration and FINRA distribution oversight into scope. A fixed indexed annuity is non-registered, which keeps the entire regulatory story inside the state insurance department filing lane above. The predecessor concept this same board considered was a RILA — see the Prior Concept Cancellation Record for why it did not proceed on those terms.

5. Why This Program Publishes No Full-Program Earned Value Baseline

Every other program-management suite in this portfolio publishes a baselined cost and schedule performance measure across the life of the program. This one deliberately does not (Decision D-10), and the reason is structural rather than a gap: at any point before Gate 3, only Stages 1 and 2 are funded. A program-level cost or schedule variance would measure actual spend against a budget for stages the Board has not yet approved — comparing real numbers to a number nobody has committed to is not a variance, it is a guess wearing a variance's clothing.

6. Beacon Index Advantage by the Numbers

Full budget derivation, roster envelopes and the business-case economics live in the Gate 1 Business Case Package and the (forthcoming) Program Budget; they are not repeated here to avoid two documents drifting out of agreement on the same figures.

7. Roles at a Glance

Gate Review Board — five voting seats, a non-voting chair, an observer

Why the Chair does not vote: the person accountable for gate integrity and evidence quality is not the person deciding whether the program continues (Governance Model §4, Decision D-11). Underneath the Board, 90 people across fifteen functional teams — Actuarial (pricing and valuation), Legal & Compliance, Regulatory Filing, IT (platform and illustration), Investments/ALM & Hedging, Operations, Distribution, Marketing, Finance and the Product Development PMO — carry the work the Board is deciding on.

8. How This Compares to the Other Five Suites in This Portfolio

If you have looked at the PM, Agile, Federal or Aerospace suites in this portfolio, most of the program-management furniture here will feel familiar: a resource plan reconciled to a budget, a RAIDD log, status reporting. What is different is the premise. The other five suites assume the program will be delivered and sequence the work toward that delivery — PMBOK waterfall phases, agile sprints, a hybrid phase-gate/sprint model, FAR-governed task-order phases, or an AS9100 qualification-to-production sequence. This suite does not assume delivery. It asks, five times, formally and with a recorded vote, whether the program should continue to exist, and it funds one stage at a time rather than baselining a budget once. It is also the only suite in the portfolio that documents a program the same governing body cancelled — see the Prior Concept Cancellation Record — and the only one with no full-program earned value baseline, for the structural reason given in §5. Every other difference in this suite (the Gate Conditions Register, the U rating, the tranche-by-tranche budget) is a mechanism for making that single premise operate honestly rather than as a slogan.

9. Questions & Answers

10. Related Reading

• Stage-Gate Governance Model & Gate Review Board Charter — the governing instrument this guide explains.
• Gate Decision Framework — full must-meet and should-meet criteria, weights and score bands.
• Gate Conditions Register & Gate 2 Readiness Assessment — the live documents this reference material supports.
• Prior Concept Cancellation Record — the predecessor concept this same board cancelled.
• Program Story — a narrative walk through the suite, start here if this is your first visit.

Maintained by C. Tyrrell, NPD Program Manager and Chair of the Gate Review Board.