Contact Us
Send us a message

Stage-Gate® Ready Certified

Innovation Framework was the first software company in the world to be ‘Stage-Gate Ready’ certified by Stage-Gate International.

Background to Stage-Gate

Dr Robert G. Cooper and Dr Scott Edgett of the Product Development Institute and founders of Stage-Gate International have been researching innovation best practices for over 30 years.

They are globally recognized as leaders in new product development and product portfolio management. They have been published more than 200 times and have written eleven books – compiling the largest body of knowledge on product innovation best-practices in the world. In 2007 Cooper and Edgett were named the world’s top innovation management scholars by prestigious Journal of Product Innovation Management.

We have been certified in these best-practices and embedded them in our software, so that our clients can quickly and reliably achieve a step change in innovation performance. These embedded practices cover the following four parts of the innovation process (and described in these books by Cooper and Edgett):

Innovation Strategy

How to identify innovation objectives, strategic arenas, attack plans and roadmaps.

Portfolio Management

How to fund the right projects to optimize innovation investment.

Idea Management

Techniques to find and pick big new ideas, from inside & outside your company.

Idea-to-Launch Process

The stage-gate process to launch more successful new products.

Why a software certification?

In 2006, Drs Cooper & Edgett wanted to ensure that software vendors claiming to support their innovation best practices were actually doing so.

So Cooper and Edgett defined a scorecard of over 150 mandatory and optional criteria to evaluate the claims of these software vendors, to ensure prospective buyers knew that the software had been validated and endorsed by Stage-Gate International.

Innovation Framework applied to become certified in January 2007 and became the first company in the world to pass these criteria in April 2007, just three months later. We have been re-certified every two years ever since, satisfying the additional criteria that were added to the scorecard over time and achieving a 100% pass mark on all mandatory and optional criteria.

Benefits to You

The Stage-Gate Ready certification identifies software solutions capable of automating new product development and new product portfolio management processes and practices. Look for this “seal of approval” when evaluating innovation process automation software.

Stage-Gate International identifies the following benefits of using Stage-Gate Ready certified software:

Save Time

Save time, effort, and money researching, viewing, and pre-qualifying vendors. View the short-list of qualified process automation software. Ask vendors to supply their Stage-Gate Ready Certification Report Card to receive validation and more easily differentiate between their capabilities.

Reduce Risk

Be confident that the new product development and new product portfolio management software you select performs all required Stage-Gate functionality. All Stage-Gate Ready certified vendors have submitted to a rigorous product innovation functionality evaluation performed by an unbiased Stage-Gate Product Innovation Expert. They have demonstrated functionality on 200+ innovation-related criteria and provided user references to prove that their solution is capable of automating Stage-Gate processes and practices.

Remove the Guesswork

Ask certified Stage-Gate Ready vendors for their Certification Report Cards to understand how their software performs on each mandatory and optional innovation-related criterion. You can share this report card with your IT organization to communicate your unique product innovation business requirements.

«We selected IFT that was Stage-Gate Ready Certified. It was reassuring to us to know that the world’s thought leaders in Product Innovation Management, Stage-Gate International, rigorously evaluated IFT to confirm it could support our Stage-Gate best practices.»

Andres Salinas, VP Innovation, McKesson

«I strongly recommend all would-be buyers to ask specifically for Stage-Gate® Ready software, even if your company does not deploy a traditional Stage-Gate process. We want to help organizations take advantage of innovation productivity tools that can help advance business performance. We believe that if we reduce risks associated with these decisions, it is a win-win for everyone.»

Dr. Robert G. Cooper

Our Stage-Gate® Ready Certification

To become certified, each software vendor has to demonstrate software capabilities that support the Product Development Institute’s innovation best practices. Innovation Framework Has achieved a 100% pass mark in all 212 mandatory and optional criteria in each of the four categories:

Please contact us to request our full certification scorecard, showing all mandatory and optional criteria passed.