check point stage gate

I met Doug Hall at an event last month and he skewered the entire Stage Gate process as "the primary cause of the 86% decline in US innovation success rates over the last 20 years."  He called it an out-dated "command and control" process and said that the innovation process needed as much of an overhaul as Japanese manufacturing after WWII.  He called Stage Gate "Corporate Communism" and unveiled a more "entrepreneurial" alternative.

It turned out, Doug was just getting warmed up.  Last week, he emailed me that "the talk in London got me on a roll – so I decided to really take a big shot at Corporate Communism.  Any chance I can motivate you to do a cartoon about how the Central Command oppresses the little guy?"  Doug’s writing an article for the American Creativity Association journal called "The Rise of Corporate Communism and the Fall of American Innovation".

So, that’s the little story on this cartoon.  Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.