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24.3. Summary
By the time of the Gate 3 meeting, all operational risk should be removed. Nevertheless,
management should consider risks external to the product and the product team before
giving the final go ahead to implement the system. A go decision will allow the team to
start trading investment capital immediately. For the coming stage, Stage 4, the product
team and risk management will be free to focus on market risks.
Often overlooked are opportunities to improve the processes that produce the trading/
investment system. Process improvements make future products better and easier to design
and develop, eliminating risks of errors, enhancing consistency, and reducing costs.
Gates are a convenient time for reflection, for the team to look back on their own per-
formance and the processes used over the course of the previous stage. The pressure for
instant solutions leads to short-term thinking. Short-term thinking often addresses symp-
toms, not causes of problems. Quality management requires that teams find root causes to
real problems so that processes can truly be improved. Perpetual process benchmarking
will mean that processes are under constant review and change.24.3. SUMMARY