MEETINGS IN THE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS: APPLYING DESIGN METHODS TO IMPROVE TEAM INTERACTION AND MEETING OUTCOMES

Design methods are used to support single steps of the product development process. They are expected to contribute to reducing the development time and to enhancing the degree of innovation of the outcome. But as they are time-consuming, cost-intensive and so far of little practical use, there is a call for new approaches and more appropriate selection of methods. The high level of abstraction and the theoretical overload of many design methods and their descriptions are seen as their main deficits. The inclusion of team competencies and team aspects (e.g., team size) is proposed to achieve a greater acceptance of design methods in practice. Supporting this idea, we present and evaluate the results of a single case study aiming at demonstrating the benefit of design methods in team meetings. Finally, we introduce an approach for using the observatory data to improve the use of design methods by means of an advanced methods assistance system.