Situation-appropriate method selection in product development process – empirical study of method application

Although numerous methods exist for the product development process they are not regularly used in practice. One reason is that there is often not enough know-how available regarding the integration of the methods in product development processes. In this contribution, results of an open online survey are presented. Major findings of this study reveal that applied methods are usually used with a certain focus, although all method categories can be found throughout the entire product development process. Furthermore, the research results show that the variance in the evaluation of the suitability of individual methods within a category was remarkably low. Simultaneously the number of used methods within the corresponding category was spread out since there are many seldom-applied methods that are evaluated as successful, so the purpose of the methods' research should be the provision of situation-appropriate methods to developers.