Design structure matrix and its applications in innovation management

Abstract

New product/process development entails technical and managerial complexities, such as coordination among interactions among entities and functions in the supply chain. DSM (Design structure matrix) tools have been successfully used to manage complex projects management tools to simplify the complexity and to offer a visual support to decision-making. Nevertheless, the project management community does not seem to have incorporated DSM, which is often perceived by project managers as being “too technical”. To bridge this gap, we perform in this paper a systematic review, which analyzes the publications in the last 10 years about the use of DSM in project, innovation, and product management. The result of this analysis indicates DSM, and its derivations remain an ever-growing tool. Their applications in project management are promising but it is still required to increase the adoption of DSM into the mainstream methods of project management.