R&D Project and Portfolio Management – Applying the Cooper Stage Gate Framework in a Corporate Environment

The outputs of directed Research and Development activities are an essential pillar to ensure industry corporations can meet their market ambitions and fulfill their financial targets.

However, while new product ideas can be aligned with potential market opportunities, managing the risks and uncertainty intrinsic to R&D remains the major challenge for any corporate innovation program.

In this talk, it is shown how the Cooper Stage-Gate Process can be applied to R&D activities in the Electronics industry to manage risk at both the operational project level as well as from a portfolio perspective.

Projects will be executed in a structured way from scientific idea to launched commercial product while factors such as investment needs, profitability, sustainability impact, technical and market risks can be balanced.