FAQ: What Happens to Stage Gates When Switching Methodology?

This FAQ explains what happens to your project's stage gates when you change the project's methodology. Understanding this behavior helps ensure you don't lose important historical data and can confidently update methodologies as your project evolves.

Stage gates are checkpoints in your project's lifecycle that help ensure your project meets specific criteria before moving to the next phase. They can be:

• Approval gates that require sign-off from stakeholders

• Quality gates that verify deliverables meet standards

• Decision points that determine if a project should continue

Each gate has a status:

• Open - The gate is active and needs to be addressed

• Closed - The gate has been completed/approved

• Blocking - The gate has an outstanding approval in-progress.

When you change a project’s methodology, all existing stage gates are retained. The system updates how those gates are positioned so that you can adopt a new methodology without ever losing approval history or audit data.

There is no scenario where an existing gate — or its approvals — is deleted as part of a methodology change.

If the new methodology uses the same gates

• The existing gates are reused

• Each gate is aligned to the phase defined in the new methodology

• The phase order is updated to reflect the new structure

• All historical information is preserved, including:

  • Approval decisions

  • Approval dates

  • Approvers and workflows

This ensures continuity where methodologies share common governance checkpoints.

If the new methodology does not include some existing gates

• Gates that were closed or pending approval are kept on the project. They are moved to the phase with the closest order in the new methodology. All approval history and decision records are therefore fully retained.

• Gates that were not started are removed and replaced with the gates associated with the new methodology.

This guarantees that previously completed or in-flight approvals are never lost, even if the new methodology no longer explicitly defines those gates.

• No Loss of Historical Data - Completed gates and approvals are never deleted

• Continuity - Common gates between methodologies are preserved and updated

• Flexibility - You can change methodologies without losing project progress

• Audit Trail - Complete history of all completed gates is maintained

• Smart Updates - Only relevant gates are kept; outdated ones are removed

A: No. All closed gates with their approval history, dates, and decision-makers are preserved.

A: The gates will be re-aligned to their corresponding phases and their status will persist.

A: Yes. Each time you change, the system preserves all gates and their status.

A: If the gate has an active approval workflow but isn't closed yet:

• The gate is updated to match the new methodology

• The approval workflow details are preserved

• The approver assignments remain unchanged

A: The phase order (which phase a gate belongs to) is automatically updated to match the new methodology's phase structure. This applies to both open and closed gates.