It's difficult to shake off old patterns, especially when those patterns are dysfunctional processes in an organization. Most organizations have processes that they know do not work, and yet they hold onto them—sometimes for years.

Take the stage-gate process in product development for example. As part of our 2011 New Product Development: Embracing an Adaptable Process study, we surveyed 211 organizations about their product development processes. Although 88 percent of organizations claimed to have a formal process for new product development, 21 percent of organizations said that the process isn't used. A fifth of organizations are not using their processes!

This could happen for a number of reasons. The process may not have been communicated effectively, or it may not fit within the context of actual work. It could have been created a while ago, and it has not evolved with the organization. We detail several more reasons in Warning Signs of Poor New Product Development Governance.

A more interesting question is: Why do organizations stick with these unused processes? Again, there are many possibilities. Change takes time, and an organization might not have the resources available to orchestrate a change. Process design is time-consuming, and if the organization is already busy with specific process improvement initiatives, it may overlook other ineffective processes. Whatever the underlying reason, in the end, organizations usually continue to use those processes simply because it's easier to stick with the status quo than to break free.

Well, consider this your invitation to bust loose and to make those much-needed changes. For those critical stage-gate meetings (whether for product development, engineering, or any other process with multiple formal decision points), we have a useful checklist to make sure that the meetings actually help projects reach fruition: What Every Good Gate Meeting Should Have. So many decision-point meetings seem like roadblocks and extra work rather than milestones. It's time to do something different.

And our Best Practices Implementation Roadmap can guide you toward putting those best practices in place. It takes some work, but you will save more money and effort by revamping your processes than you ever could by pretending that those issues don't exist.