Move an investment through the SAM stages

Mode: how-to. Advance an investment through the six SAM stages, from a Discovery hypothesis to a benefits verdict.

SAM’s lifecycle has six stages, grouped into three acts:

Act	Stages	The question it answers
Commit	Discovery → Approval	Is this worth funding?
Run	Initiation → Delivery	Is it still worth it?
Realise	Close-out → Benefits Realisation	What did we get, and what next?

You don’t set the stage on a dropdown. The stage follows from the governance acts you perform, chiefly the business case lifecycle. Tollgate guides, it does not enforce. Two deliberate hard gates exist: the Adoption & Change (BCM) quartet at business case submission, and the lessons field on a Not realised verdict. Everything else is a soft signal you can act on when you’re ready.

Advance the investment

Discovery. Draft the Investment Thesis / Business Case in an Exploring state with relaxed gates.

Pressure-test the problem, outcome, return, and adoption cost. Candidates that don’t survive are archived with a one-line rationale, and stay findable.
Approval. Submit the business case. It flips to Submitted and appears in the sponsor’s Awaiting your decision queue.

Before you submit, set the Adoption & Change quartet, name the sponsor, and polish the problem and outcome — see Submit a business case for approval. The sponsor Approves or Returns with notes. Archiving a dead idea is a separate act, available at any time.
Initiation. After approval, lay the foundations — work the visible Initiation checklist.

The foundations are a work-package structure with owners, baselines, the Adoption work package, a seeded risk register, and a confirmed cadence.
Delivery. The long run. Keep the case file current with the weekly review.

Self-report Outcome and Adoption confidence alongside RAG (red/amber/green). Route materialised risks to decisions, and present at each steerco.
Close-out. Prepare the close-out submission and get sponsor sign-off — see Close out an investment.

The submission covers the as-built outcome and return, residual risks resolved, lessons, and the BAU (business-as-usual) handover.
Benefits Realisation. When the case’s Benefit measured on date arrives, record the verdict. See Run a benefits-realisation review.

Check the gate position

Each of the six stages hinges on one gate — the decision that lets the investment advance. The ladder of all six is the stage rail itself: a stepper in the Tollgate tab’s persistent header, rendered in every lifecycle state. Its steps group under the three acts — Commit, Run and Realise. The six steps read Discovery, Case, Initiation, Delivery, Close-out and Realise. Hover a step for the full gate description. One layout note: the rail draws Close-out inside the Run group for spacing, while the method (and the portfolio’s Act lens) counts it as the first Realise stage.

The six gates, grouped by act:

Act	Gate
Commit	Define project charter
Commit	Make the business case
Run	Set the baseline
Run	Deliver the outcome
Realise	Close out the investment
Realise	Judge the benefits

Each step’s marker reports its gate honestly:

A solid tick — the gate is passed, with recorded evidence behind it.
A hollow tick — passed without recorded evidence.
A dot — the current stage. During Initiation it also carries a live count of the foundations in place.
Unfilled — still ahead.

Passed without recorded evidence is the honest phrase for a gate the investment crossed without the evidence that would sign it off. It is a statement, not an alarm: Tollgate reports the position and does not refuse to let you stand there.

For the record behind the current gate, open Investment Health and select the quiet On record control. It names the governing artefact and its status — Business Case, Approved, say. It opens the Gate status drawer. The drawer holds the artefact and status, the facts on record (version, approver, dates, the next gate), and a lifecycle note. Once a close-out or realisation sign-off produces one, the sign-off record appears under On record.