Technology Management is Integrated Planning

Final Report (UMJG 3032)

Title

:

Stage and Gate Management System

Name

:

Dannial Harrisson Anak Makerly

Matric No

:

A15MJ0030

Section

:

03

Lecturer

:

Prof. Hiroshi Nakanishi

Definition of technology management is integrated planning, optimisation, operation, design and control of technological processes, services and products and bring advantage of technology for consumers. The typical concepts of technology management are technology forecasting, strategy, roadmap and project portfolio. One of way to manage technology is through stage and gate management system. A stage and gate system is an operational and conceptual road map for moving a newly proposed product from scratch and lastly to launching the actual product. In stage and gate management system, the effort was divided into two distinct stages and separated by management decision gates, known as gate keeping. The cross-functional teams must successfully complete a set of prescribed cross-functional activities in each stage prior to obtaining approval from the management to proceed to the next stage of the development of product.

Figure 1 Stage and Gate Management system

There are 3 major merits in applying the stage and gate management system. One of it is, through stage and gate, discipline can be introducing into an ordinarily disordered process. As being mentioned above, technology management is a process of planning, optimisation,

operation, design, and control. During the research and development stage of the project, there would be some disordered process such as limited human resource, that may slow the process thus delaying the launching of the product. Through discipline, the problem can be reduced or prevented as everyone in the team work to solve the problem together. Second is improves focus through gates where poor projects that are predicted to fail was removed. This part is very crucial as the selected idea should be perfectly executed and targeted to meet the consumers’ needs. A good idea will bring the project to success while bad idea will eventually fail. So, ideas should gone through a strict screening where only the idea that are more likely to succeed passed the gate. Third is to ensure that the process is complete and no critical steps are omitted. Every step in the process is very crucial and important to be carried out carefully. A small crucial step that are omitted will cost the project a lot of money and time as the project must re-work the step. Besides, the stage and gate management system can also be applied during my studies in MJIIT. This can be clearly showed during group work or group project. The stage and gate system helped us to choose the best idea with a clear vision of success and goal of the project. This helped us to expand our research and development process in the idea thus expending more improvements and possibility for the project to succeed. This can also reduce reworking any omitted steps that will waste the effort and time and likely to accelerates the product of initial idea. As being mentioned above, the stage and gate management system will be very useful during my final year project as the idea of the project must be clear and perfect before deciding to put effort on expanding the idea. Idea screening that was implement in the gate system will be the base of the entire project success. After the screening, the following process such as research and launching the product of the idea should be perfect as the idea was expanded during the following stage and gate process. In conclusion, implementing stage and gate in everything we do may help succeeding our project or our work. The system does not only limit to project work but also in our studies or during we work. A clear idea is the base of a successful stage and gate management process.