For many products the drying step exerts a great influence on price and application properties. Therefore great effort should be invested in developing and optimizing drying processes. This paper presents a structured procedure for the development of drying processes. In the case of optimal experimental equipment an "ideal" method of proceeding is indicated. Furthermore it is shwon how to develop and optimize drying processes very successfully with little experimental equipment or even if there is no experimental equipment available. Papers published in this field treat only special aspects or presume optimal experimental equipment. This paper is specially interesting for users with limited experimental equipment.