The coexistence of design thinking and stage and gate in the same organisational context-Challenges and need for integration

The current product innovation scenario is facing important changes that require the New Product Development (NPD) process to be adjusted. Despite Stage and Gate (SG) is the most adopted framework, several studies inquired how to overcome its limits; new innovation methods emerged from the practitioners’ world, and, among them, Design Thinking (DT). To our knowledge, no research has inquired the coexistence of the two methods inside the same organizational context. This study is based on a single case study of a food company where the two methods co-exist. The aim is to understand if the perceptions of the employees are coherent with the pros and cons of literature and to investigate if the two methods can be compared, integrated or are mutually exclusive. Our study shows that the two methods, as parallel processes, lead to confusion among employees, due to the overlapping of some activities, with a perception of wasted resources. Moreover, emerged an interesting balance among the pros and cons of the two methods, where items have been identified as complementary. Results highlight a call for integration among the two methods with the limits of SG overtaken by the benefits of DT.