# Design project stage gates with clear entry and exit criteria

A lightweight phase-gate framework with evidence-based criteria, decision options, and governance that fits your project sizes.

- Topic: Projects & Operations
- Framework: Few-Shot
- Level: Standard
- Tags: Analyze, Brainstorm, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/design-project-stage-gates-with-clear-entry-and-exit-criteria

## Prompt

```text
Help me design a stage-gate framework for projects in my organization.

**Types and sizes of projects:** [e.g. "software, process change, and facilities; $20K to $2M"]
**Current lifecycle or methodology:** [waterfall / agile / hybrid / none]
**Problems I want gates to solve:** [e.g. "projects start without business cases", "no one stops failing projects"]
**Who sits on gate reviews:** [ROLES]
**Appetite for process:** [light / moderate / heavy]

Design:
1. **The stages** (typically 4-6, e.g. idea, initiation, planning, delivery, close) with the purpose of each.
2. **Each gate**: entry criteria, the evidence required (named documents or data, not opinions), who decides, and the possible decisions - go, go with conditions, hold, recycle, or stop.
3. **Scaling rules**: what small, medium, and large projects must do at each gate, so small projects are not buried in paperwork.
4. **How gates work with agile delivery**: what replaces detailed upfront plans (e.g. release goals, demo evidence, benefit checks).
5. **A gate review template**: one page, with questions reviewers should always ask.
6. **Kill criteria**: signals that should trigger a serious stop-or-continue discussion, and how to make stopping a project safe rather than career-damaging.

Also list the 3 most common ways gate processes fail (rubber-stamping, document theater, delays) and how this design avoids them.
```

## What to fill in

- e.g. "software, process change, and facilities; $20K to $2M"
- waterfall / agile / hybrid / none
- ROLES
- light / moderate / heavy

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.