3. Project life cycle might contain several distinct stages. Which of these stages is likely to be most resource-intensive (i.e., at which of these stages do you expend most resources)? And, given a "resource profile," where would you want to have a stage-gate (i.e., should you set up a stage-gate before or after a resource intensive stage), and why?

4. Stage-gates are often designed as threshold barriers (i.e., "must-meet" requirements) where projects are allowed to go through only if they meet a specific number of criteria. These criteria could be factors such as minimum market-size addressed, maximum resource requirement etc. Many projects have to deal with uncertainty where the criteria that are achievable is unclear at the beginning. Given this uncertainty, should the thresholds/criteria at the stage-gates (decision-points) be up for re-negotiation after it has been decided once? What are the pros and cons for "flexible" vs "hard and fast" criteria?