Successful enterprise software delivery requires a phase-gate process. The Project Management Institute (PMI.org) and many other phase-gate examples are available on the web. For this discussion, I’ve selected a generic Wikipedia version. We’ll discuss requirements and release management, along with different development approaches (e.g. agile) in a future blog.

The phase-gate concept identifies a series of efforts or “phases.” Each is separated by a “gate” ensuring the criteria for the previous phase were successfully delivered. Each phase has specific deliverables, with clear delivery and decision-making accountability. The HR component of “who will do what,” and “who will make which decisions” is critical to drive productivity. Failure to clearly identify “who will do what” leads to missed expectations and delayed business results. Failure to align “who will make which decisions” yields dysfunctional behavior. Business skills are required to identify “what” the target is, while IT skills determine “how” to technically deliver it. As you progress through the phase-gate process, decision accountability transitions from “what” to “how” resources.

Gating meetings are critical to your enterprise’s success and should not be taken lightly. They represent go/no-go decisions to continue allocating your company’s limited resources against this effort. The gating process leverages checks and balances throughout, halting projects not meeting their business objectives. As a leader, you must celebrate not only successful project delivery, but also killing projects not meeting their success criteria. The team has not necessarily failed because the project couldn’t deliver results. Rather, the idea either wasn’t good enough, or the current business environment or technical capabilities are unable to deliver the objectives.  Continuing to pour your people and money into a losing project is very painful and is very ineffective for your company.