MusiVal - Supporting method validation through situation tailored validation activities

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Dieter Krause; Professor Dr.-Ing. Sven Matthiesen
• Subject Area: Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 447357425

To ensure that product development methods (PD methods) contribute to product development as anticipated and positively influence the thinking of product developers, their validation is a key step. But the validation of PD methods remains a major challenge for method researchers. The previous MProvE project addressed the challenge of transitioning from higher-level research methodologies to concrete validation activities by developing a procedural model aimed at objectivity and reproducibility of findings. This enables researchers to place themselves in the structure, effect, and performance validation, to differentiate the validation progress and, based on this, to identify the type and sequence of studies required, for which supporting validation activities can be used. Supporting validation activities were also developed and evaluated for structure and effect validation. However, the problem remains that there are no suitable validation activities for performance validation, which is influenced by a large number of boundary conditions. Such boundary conditions are, for example, the time horizon of the benefit or the frequency of occurrence of the problem. This follow-up proposal therefore aims to strengthen the objectivity and reproducibility of the findings in the performance validation of PD methods through validation activities, taking into account the boundary conditions of methods research projects. To this end, an interview study is first used to develop a holistic picture of the boundary conditions in methods research projects. The findings are then used to develop and evaluate a validation activity at the PKT for the validation criterion applicability, and a validation activity at the IPEK for the validation criterion effectiveness of PD methods for performance validation. The validation activities are evaluated in three consecutive studies: Firstly, an evaluation is carried out with other researchers, then a subject study is carried out at the chair that developed the validation activity, and finally a subject study is carried out as a cross-evaluation at the other chair. In addition, the boundary conditions will be integrated into the procedural model from the previous MProvE project, which will be digitized in the form of a website, thus enabling a situation-specific selection and planning of the validation activities for performance validation. The final result of the research project is therefore two validation activities for performance validation and a website that provides the procedural model and validation activities from both the MProvE and MusiVal projects for transfer to method research. This is an essential contribution to transparent and comparable performance validation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants