Idea StageProjects can progress through these stages rapidly or slowly - even leapfrogging stages for a particularly good business idea that hits at just the right time. Each stage presents its own challenges, risks, and objectives that must be addressed before healthily proceeding to the next level. Prematurely shifting to a higher stage can often lead to confusion, push-back, and failure. For example, a common error is to attempt to move from an business concept (Idea Stage) directly into significant activity (Ramp Up Stage) without first testing the market's/organization's acceptance of the idea (Test Stage).
Gate: None
Goal: Generate a viable business concept
Activities: Gather research; connect with experts, partners, and stakeholders; develop a value proposition for the project; identify/create an opportunity to apply the concept
Risks: Over-analysis; lack of research; failure to validate business concepts with experts who understand the market; moving forward with an idea despite having only a weak business case
Challenges: Connecting with the right people; objectivity
Team Status: Information exchange
Test Stage
Gate: Viable business concept plus an application opportunity
Goal: Validate the concept
Activities: Secure initial resources; recruit team; gain minimal approvals (as required); implement concept
Risks: Overreaching; corporate responses to failure; going "public" too early; selecting the wrong opportunity
Challenges: Selecting the right opportunity; admitting it is not working when it isn't; resource acquisition; securing buy-in; staying under the radar
Team Status: Informal connections around a singular, short-term task
Ramp-up Stage
Gate: A successful test of the business idea
Goal: Expand activity scope to determine if the success is repeatable on a larger scale
Activities: Secure additional resources; gain more formal recognition and approvals; recruit additional team members; formalize responsibilities and processes; identify and exploit new opportunities; expand work scope
Risks: Failing to recognize and account for differences between the test case and new opportunities; official recognition and control; spreading the team too thin
Challenges: Maintaining flexibility; keeping what works a priority over "officially recognized practices"; resource acquisition
Team Status: Semi-formalized relationships with a basic understanding of who is doing what and what needs to be done
Codify Stage
Gate: A series of successful tests
Goal: Identify what works, formalize it, and refine based on results
Activities: Manage the successful ventures; assess lessons learned; identify best practices; document team member roles and responsibilities, processes, and procedures; improve team/initiative efficiency and effectiveness
Risks: Failure to apply lessons learned to improve operations; heightened success and formalization attracting official sanction and control too early; becoming too busy to codify processes;
Challenges: Keeping official control at bay; shifting focus from expansion (external) to improving operations (internal)
Team Status: Formalized relationships and responsibilities
Inculcation Stage
Gate: Documented, efficient, and effective processes and procedures established
Goal: Incorporate the initiative into the official corporate structure
Activities: Secure official recognition and status; negotiate approvals for any non-traditional business practices; train lower-level personnel to maintain operations
Risks: Staying with the initiative too long; loosing what works to achieve corporate compliance
Challenges: Letting go; negotiating official status for non-standard practices
Team Status: Fully official job responsibilities maintained by traditionally-minded corporate personnel
This framework provides a particularly handy guide for leaders managing a portfolio of projects in the margin. These leaders should strive to maintain a mix of initiatives across the stages to maximize stability while avoiding stagnation.
