DIN Standards are the results of work at national, European and/or international level. Anyone can submit a proposal for a new standard. Once accepted, the standards project is carried out according to set rules of procedure by the relevant DIN Standards Committee, the relevant Technical Committee of the European standards organization CEN (CENELEC for electrotechnical standards) or the relevant committee at the international standards organization ISO (IEC for electrotechnical projects).

All stakeholders can participate in this work, including manufacturers, consumers, businesses, research institutes, public authorities and testing bodies. They send experts to represent their interests within DIN's working bodies, which are overseen by some 70 standards committees, each of which is responsible for a specific subject area. For work at European and international level, the DIN standards committees send experts to represent German interests within CEN and ISO, respectively. DIN staff members coordinate the standardization process and are responsible for overall project management, ensuring the uniformity and consistency of the German standards collection.

Standards are developed with full consensus, that is, they are developed by experts with the aim of arriving at a common standpoint, taking the state of the art into consideration.

DIN Standards are reviewed at least every five years. If a standard no longer reflects the current state of technology, it is either revised or withdrawn.