Collaborative problem solving in design methods: Foundation elements for an integrated approach

Product design is a fundamental activity for company success. The challenge of industrial environment, based on the capability of innovation and problem solving, is dealt with numerous well-known methodologies. This paper presents a survey of these techniques and it is oriented to prove that the existence of common characteristics is the baseline for an integrated and synergic development of the methodologies. Moreover this work highlights not only technical aspects of the collaborative problem solving environment, but also analyses some fundamental needs (human and ICT) for problem solving teams. A perspective of future works, concerning methods and their integration, is finally provided.