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Conducting innovation activities receives increasing attention in SMEs. These activities can be formalized in the product development processes (PDPs), but especially challenges in PDPs affect the SMEs’ innovation capability (IC). Based on a thorough understanding of these challenges, we aim at improving the SMEs’ IC. We address our research question ‘what are the current challenges in PDPs of SMEs?’ with conducting in 13 SMEs semi-structured in-depth interviews with CEOs, innovation managers, and heads of R&D. We identify 30 challenges, aggregated in the themes: iteration, decision making, and stakeholder involvement. While our results extend recent literature regarding current challenges in PDP, they also reveal the SMEs’ needed for effective means to tackle their challenges, and in turn to enhance their IC.

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