Running a gate review in thirty minutes

Most stage-gate reviews fail quietly. The meeting happens, a decision is made, and three months later nobody can show what was approved or on what evidence. This article sets out a simple way to run gates so the decision and its proof stay together.

Why gate approvals drift into email

A gate has three parts: a request, a set of criteria and a decision. In most organisations each part lives somewhere different. The request is a document, the criteria are in a template, and the decision is a reply in an inbox.

That split is the root of the problem. When the parts are separate, reconciling them becomes somebody’s job before every review, and the record is only as good as that person’s filing.

What a governed gate looks like

A governed gate keeps all three parts on the project record. In practice that means:

• The request is raised against the gate, not sent as an attachment.
• Each criterion is marked as met, not met or waived, with a link to its evidence.
• The approver records the decision in the same place, with conditions if there are any.

Criteria should be specific

A criterion such as “risks are under control” cannot be checked. “No open risk rated high without an owner and a due date” can. Write criteria so that two people would reach the same answer.

If two approvers could read a criterion differently, it is not a criterion yet.

A comparison

Where to start

Pick the next gate on one live project. Write its criteria so each can be checked, raise the request on the project record and ask the approver to respond there. Compare the time it takes with the last gate you ran by email.

The first review usually takes about the same time. The saving shows at the next audit, when the answer to “who approved this, and why?” is one click away.