FlowChart Tool for Decision Making in Interdisciplinary Research Cooperation

A common understanding of the state of a research project is vital for project planning and decision making in interdisciplinary research cooperation. Surveys in a production technology based environment shows, that project planning and decision support tools exist and are known, however they are not used in practice. Interviews indicate that the poor usage of such tools originate from the complexity of the tools and that there is no perceptible added value for the performing researcher in using these tools. A requirements analysis is performed to extract the non-functional and functional requirements of a web-based project planning tool, which is developed and tested in an interdisciplinary research cooperation, called the Cluster of Excellence for production research at the RWTH Aachen University. User interviews show that the acceptance of such tools is strongly related to the presence of all features that are considered vital by the user for project planning and decision support.