Product development becomes increasingly uncertain and dynamic. Under these conditions, traditional approaches such as VDI 2221 and VDI 2206 reach their limits as they are too stiff to handle large numbers of changes efficiently. Agile methods, however, are flexible and embrace changes. In software development, they have been proven very beneficial which is why they belong to the standard
... [Show full abstract] procedures there. In the development of physical products, crucial challenges (e.g. building prototypes frequently) exist. Considering that, the paper investigates, if agile methods are serious alternatives to traditional approaches for physical product development, too. It turns out that they are not. Nevertheless, maturing technologies such as 3d printing could potentially serve as a game changer soon.
