Proceedings of PICMET'05, Portland, Oregon, USA, Jul. 31-Aug. 4, 2005.

Stage Gate Analysis in Business-Academia Collaborative Project
Naoshi Uchihira
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
Abstract—This paper analyzes an actual business-academia
collaborative project from the viewpoint of stage gate approach(we call this approach “stage gate analysis”). Stage gate analysis
is a method of reviewing a finished project and summarizing it,
whereas conventional stage gate management is used to control
an on-going project. The case study analyzed is a project
undertaken over a period of 6 years by Tokyo Institute ofTechnology, Toshiba Corporation and other companies toconstruct credit information infrastructure. The stage gate
analysis clarifies success and failure factors of the project with acause-and-effect relation map which can be utilized by otherbusiness-academia collaborative projects.

I. INTRODUCTION
Since success or failure of R&D projects largely depends
on quality of management, project managers should learn andshare best practices from previous projects. Although manysuccess stories have been reported, it is difficult for managers
to accumulate and enhance knowledge and skills from thesestories. In these cases, we believe that analyzing andsummarizing frameworks are required for knowledge reuse.
The stage gate approach [1, 2, 3, 4] is one of the popular andeffective frameworks to manage ongoing R&D projects.
However, no one has shown a concrete procedure based onstage gate for backward review to analyze past projects andformalize knowledge and practices from them. In this paper,
we introduce one concrete stage gate analysis specialized forsoftware and service R&D projects in which activities of eachstage and conditions of each gate are organized by acause-and-effect relation map. We analyze an actual
business-academia collaborative project based on our stagegate analysis, and extracts best practices from the analysis
which can be utilized by other business-academia
collaborative projects.
II. STAGE GATE ANALYSIS
Stage gate methods [3] are used to manage, direct, andaccelerate R&D processes in many companies (e.g., 3M,
Kodak, General Electric, Motorola, DuPont, Toray, Asahi
Kasei). The main purpose in applying the stage gate method
is to provide guidelines for project managers. The methodsuggests what the manager should do at each stage and what 
the important goals (gates=checkpoints) of the stage are.
Although these guidelines of the stage gate method are ofhelp, we still recognize the need for backward review after
finishing projects (“stage gate analysis”), and aim to store
practical tips of R&D project management in a reusable form
for subsequent projects. The terminology “stage gate
analysis” is used in several papers. However, none provides aconcrete backward review from the stage gate viewpoint.
Therefore, the following stage gate analysis method is
proposed to satisfy the above requirements.
We adopt a customized stage gate method to softwareand services R&D projects. Our method consists of 7 stages
and 6 gates (Table 1).

TABLE 1: STAGE GATE PROCESS FOR STAGE GATE ANALYSIS
Stage/ Gate
Stage0Gate1
Stage1
Gate2
Stage2

Gate3

Stage3
Gate4

Stage4

Gate5

Stage5
Gate6
Stage6

Activities and Conditions
Idea Discovery: Pre-work designed to discover and uncover opportunities and generate ideas.
Idea screen from 3 viewpoints: (G11) Strategic fit, (G12) Market attractiveness, and (G13) Technological competitive edge. In this gate, it is not necessary tosatisfy all viewpoints, but one of them should be outstanding.
Concept Development: Activities to make an R&D project plan including initial marketing and technology survey.
Decision to start the R&D project from 3 viewpoints: (G21) Strategic fit, (G22) Market attractiveness, and (G23) Technological competitive edge. In this gate,
it is not necessary to satisfy all viewpoints, but one of them should be outstanding.
Feasibility Study:
Development of key technologies forming competitive edge and establishment of intellectual property.
Activities to secure the commitment of the business sectors that will start the business based on this project in future.
Decision to develop detailed plan, investigate, and develop from 3 viewpoints:(G31) Are key technologies forming competitive edge established?
(G32) Is there a business sector that makes a commitment?
(G33) Are a target and goal, tasks and roadmap to the goal clear and concrete?
Development: Detailed planning, investigation, and development with the business sectors, especially strengthening of competitive edge and reinforcement of
weak points. Activities to acquire an early customer.
Decision to progress to testing and validation in the marketplace from 2 viewpoints:(G41) Do an early customer and a business sector exist?
(G42) Can the total quality of the system satisfy the customer’s requirements?
Testing & Validation:
Tests or trials in the marketplace, especially for early customers.
Settlement of problems that appear in the trials.
Final approval for production and launch from 2 viewpoints:(G51) Is the business profitable?
(G52) Are problems settled?
Product production and launch: The business sector launches the business, and the R&D sector develops additional attractive technologies to deal withcompetitors.
Decision to continue production and expand the business from 3 viewpoints:(G61) High profit performance, (G62) Increasing marketability, and (G63) Product competitive power.
Product Support and Program Review: The business sector elevates it to be one of the backbone businesses (shining stars) of the sector.

The proposed stage gate analysis consists of thefollowing 4 steps. As we only explain its outline, please referto the case study in the next section.
• Step1: Story telling
Make a full story of the project according to historical
records and decompose it into 7 stages.
• Step2: Template matching
Associate activities and conditions with norms of stages
and gates specified in Table 1.
• Step3: Analyzing
Analyze success and failure factors using a

cause-and-effect relation map (Fig. 1). In thecause-and-effect relation map, the positive relation (solidline) means that there is actual positive causality between
activities and conditions on the target project. The
negative relation (dotted line) means that causality exists
between weak/poor activities and unsatisfied conditions.
For example, a gate G33 is unsatisfied because an activity
S33 is poor in Fig.1.
Step4: Summarizing
Summarize analysis and store findings in the project casedatabase.

•

Stage2

Stage1

Stage3

S11

G11

S21

G21

S31

G31

S12

G12

S22

G22

S32

G32

S13

G13

S23

G23

s33

G33

Sij

Strong Activity j in Stage i

GijStrongly Satisfied Condition j in Gate i

Sij

Weak Activity j in Stage i

GijWeakly Satisfied Condition j in Gate i

Sij

Poor Activity j in Stage i

Gij

Unsatisfied Condition j in Gate i

Positive Cause-and-Effect Relation

Negative Cause-and-Effect Relation

Figure 1: Cause-and-Effect Relation Map

III. CASE STUDY: CREDIT INFORMATIONINFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT
A. Project Overview
The credit information infrastructure project, called “CII
Project”, was launched in April 1999 by the late Professor
Hiroshi Shirakawa who was one of the most active
researchers in Japan and also a core member of Center ofResearch for Advanced Financial Technology (CRAFT),Tokyo Institute of Technology.  Purpose of the project
includes R&D of credit information infrastructure by
combining financial engineering and information technology[5, 6]. Figure 2 shows the basic structure of the credit
information infrastructure, which consists of a credit
information database and services to utilize the database.

Credit Information Infrastructure =Credit Information Database + Services

CreditCredit Control
ControlApplication
Application

Standardization
Standardization
XBRL
XBRL

CreditCredit Information
Information
Database
Database

Disclosure
Disclosure
Mechanism
Mechanism

Financial
FinancialReport
ReportPayment
PaymentReport
ReportTechnology
TechnologyAssessment
Assessment

CreditCreditRisk
Risk
Evaluation
EvaluationModel
Model

CreditCreditRisk
Risk
Evaluation
Evaluation
Web
WebServices
Services

CreditCreditInformation
Information
Flow
FlowControl
ControlInternet

Figure 2: Credit Information Infrastructure

B. Stage Gate Analysis
1. Story Telling and Template Matching
According to the stage gate analysis procedure, a historyof the project is broken down into the following stages.
Stage0 (- 1998):(S01) In his capacity as the chairman of an academic
study group on financial technology, Professor Shirakawa of
CRAFT developed a basic idea and concept through dialogue
with key people in banks and government.
Gate1:(G12) Market attractiveness was strongly satisfied in theinitial idea and concept.
Stage1 (1998):
Prof. Shirakawa prepared a business-academia
collaborative project in CRAFT. (S11) He designed thedetailed project plan and explained his concept and plan to
Toshiba and several companies.
Gate2:As a result, (G22) Toshiba and 3 companies agreed to
Shirakawa’s concept and decided to invest human andfinancial resources to a joint project.
Stage2 (1999):
The project started in April 1999. After one year’s
intensive research, (S21) an original and attractive credit riskscoring method (The CRAFT scoring method) had beendeveloped [4]. Concurrently, a concentrated effort was madeto secure national project funds. After many twists and turns,(S22) we secured national project funds (1 million dollar)
from the Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA),
one of agencies of the Ministry of Economy, Trade andIndustry (METI).
Gate3:(G31) The CRAFT scoring method was developed and(G32) National project funds were secured. (G33) A plan was
clear concerning a national project fund, but unclear after
finishing it.
Stage3 (2000):
Using national project funds, (S31) we developed aninternet finance system which is a web-based financing
support system including a new credit scoring model (Fig. 3).
Here, we rebuild the practical scoring model by analyzing ahuge amount of credit information covering twenty thousandcompanies. In March 2001, (S32) we made an announcement
concerning our system and scoring model in both asymposium and in the press, which had a significant impact
on the financial industry. We received many enquiries frominterested parties throughout Japan and finally accepted anorder to build an in-house scoring model from a credit
guarantee company. (S33) We also organized monthly regularseminars with the business community and academia. Thesemeetings were supported by METI and many key people
participated who were attracted by Professor Shirakawa’s
vision.
Gate4:(G41) An early customer appeared and (G42) thepractical scoring model performed well in benchmarking.
Stage4 (2001):
A credit-scoring model was developed for the credit
guarantee company. Through this project, (S41) we got
valuable experience and obtained know-how concerning
actual credit control management. After finishing the job,(S42) we received an order to build a credit control systemfrom a general trading company. That system was several
times larger than the previous job. In parallel, (S43) an IT
vendor proposed development of package softwaredevelopment adopting the CRAFT scoring method. Toshiba
and the IT vendor jointly developed the software and issued apress release announcing its commercialization. During thisstage, (S44) we submitted a bid to the public bidding forconstructing a scoring model used in the pubic credit
database, but failed to receive an order.
Gate5:(G51) a second job was economically feasible and, (G52)
enabling us to build on the confidence we had gained throughthe first job.
Stage5 (2002-2004):(S51) Large-scale credit scoring model and system weredeveloped for the general trading company. We gained a good
reputation with the customer and received subsequent jobs. In
parallel, (S52) the package software were sold steadily. On
the other hand, since these business-based activities seemed
to gradually diverge from the original vision, (S53) wedeveloped an experimental system (credit information supply
chain system) using XBRL (eXtended Business Reporting
Language) and Web services together with two companies in
the XBRL community in Japan. This was an academic andvolunteer-based subproject. (S54) We have been also
developing technologies to sophisticate the credit scoringmodel. Although the project has been under way for 3 years,
we are encountering difficulties in proceeding to the nextstage.

Internet Finance System
Unsecured Loan Auction System for Small Businesses with Simplified Accounting Audit

Funds Requirement

Provision of Funds

The Internet
Accounting
Firm

Small
Business 1

DB of
Past Credit
Information

Lender 1
Financial
Institution

Small
Business 2
Small
Business 3
Accounting
Audit
ASP Function

Small
Business 4

Lender 3

Lender 1

Loan
Functionthroughthe Internet

Small
Business 5
Small
Business 6

Accounting
Firm

Lender 2

CreditRisk
Evaluation
Function

Financial
Institution

Lender 2䌕䌎䌉䌘
ServerLender 3

Figure 3: Internet Finance System

contributed to acquisition of a national project fund (G32).
However, several rivals appeared in Stage 5. Additional
new scoring technologies should be earlier developed inStages 5 (S54) to satisfy a gate G63.
[Viewpoint 3] Commitment to National Systems
In order to achieve Prof. Shirakawa’s vision, the credit
information database should be constructed. However, it is
not feasible for private companies to do this. It should bedone by the government and that is what happened. We
submitted bids several times to the government’s generalpublic bidding, but were unsuccessful (S44), which may
have been due to our lack of a track record of successes
concerning national financial systems. If we had won thebid, we would have progressed to Stage 6 (G63).

2. Analyzing and Summarizing
Why could the project successfully survive to Stage 5?
Why was the project stalling in stage 5? We analyze andsummarize the project from 3 viewpoints using thecause-and-effect relation map (Fig. 4):[Viewpoint 1] Vision and Publicity
Prof. Shirakawa’s attractive vision (S01 and S11) in Stages
0 and 1 and the subsequent timely and active publicity(S32 and S33) served as the driving force of the project.
Especially, these activities contributed to acquisition of anational project fund (G32) and an early customer (G41).
[Viewpoint 2] Technological Competitive Edge
An original scoring model based on analysis of “financial
data” (S21) had competitive power in 1999 andViewpoint 1
Attractive vision and active publicity
served as the driving force.
G11
S01

G12
G13

G11
S11

G22

S21

G31

S22

G32

S31

G41

S41

G51

S51

G61

S32

G42

S42

G52

S52

G62

S53

G63

G23

S43

G33
S33

S54
S44

Viewpoint 3
Failures to receive an order fromnational systems were critical.
Viewpoint 2
Additional scoring technologies should
be developed.

Figure 4: Cause-and-Effect Relation Map of CII Project

IV. DISCUSSION
The case study of stage gate analysis has 2 practical
implications: (A) success and failure factors inbusiness-academia collaborative projects are indicated, and(B) stage gate analysis is one of the promising approaches
extracting knowledge useful in subsequent projects.
A.
Practical
ImplicationsforBusiness-Academia
Collaborative Projects
Generally, it is not easy to manage a business-academia
collaborative project involving more than two companies.
This case study indicates that an attractive vision and concept
responding to social needs are very important. In our project,
Prof. Shirakawa’s vision was attractive and high-minded, thatis, he sought to address the weak points in Japan’s financial
system following the financial Big Bang. Furthermore, ourstrategic publicity and monthly open seminars proved to beeffective in attracting new project members who shared
Professor Shirakawa’s vision. Figure 5 shows changes in themembership of the project. Only Tokyo Institute ofTechnology (Titech) and Toshiba has been members
throughout the entire period. When the project progressed toa new stage, some members may have found it difficult tocontinue because of mismatch between their own benefit andthe project’s benefit and moved apart from the project.
However, attractive vision and publicity helped us to secure
new members, especially in Stage 3 (2000) and Stage 4(2001).
Investment and revenue sharing pose difficult problems
in collaborative projects. In our project, the national projectfund in Stage 3 (2000) was particularly helpful in resolving
such problems. After 2001, we divided our activities intobusiness-based
activities
andacademic-based(volunteer-based)
activities.
Academic-based
andvolunteer-based activities continue to pursue the originalhigh-minded vision. However, in Stage 4 and 5 we needed an
opportunity to participate in another national project, but did
not gain such an opportunity. This is one reason that we areunable to proceed to Stage 6.

B. Practical Implications for Stage Gate Analysis
This paper shows that the stage gate approach is useful
not only for on-going project management but also forbackward project review and knowledge extraction throughthe case studies. Although concrete procedure of stage gate
analysis is not mentioned in the previous papers, it is clearthat these two aspects of stage gate utilization should interact
fruitfully and thus play an important role in the improvementof overall project management. Figure 6 shows an image of afuture stage gate management system with a project database.
In this system, many cases are stored in the database andcases are formalized and structured based on the stage gate
analysis. Each case consists of an attribute (project type, scale,target business domain, etc.), a cause-and-effect relation map,and a detailed project story. When planning a new R&D
project, the project manager can design the project according
to the stage gate template which is reinforced by useful cases.
Through the cases, the manager can concretely understandthe significance of activities of stages and conditions of gates.
Compared with flat text-based cases, formalized andstructured cases will be useful for searching efficiently forrelevant cases from the database.
New
Project
Plan

Searching andReference

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

ToshibaBank
Accounting Firm

Research Institute2004

Attribute

Attribute

Attribute

Cause-andEffect Map

Cause-andEffect Map

Cause-andEffect Map

Detailed
Story

Detailed
Story

Detailed
Story

Case1

Case2

Case3

…..

Project Case Database
Figure 6: Stage Gate Management System with Project Case Database

V. CONCLUSION

Project members
TitechStage
Gate
Template
Matching

This paper presented the procedure of stage gate analysis
and applied it to a credit information infrastructure project.
This procedure is useful to extract the characteristics of a
project, notably the success and failure factors. Extracted
knowledge is expected to provide useful suggestions for
similar projects. In future work, we intend to refine theprocedure by referring to other case studies and to construct
the project case database.

IT Vendor 1

REFERENCESIT Vendor 2
Data Vendor[1]

Guarantee Company[2]

Trading Company

Figure 5: Changes of Project Membership

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