A method and a device for operating an internal combustion engine, in particular a motor vehicle having a plurality of cylinder banks are described, making it possible to eliminate fluctuations in a time trend in an output quantity of the internal combustion engine that may result due to differences in operation of different cylinder banks of the internal combustion engine. A characteristic value of the output quantity of the internal combustion engine is determined repeatedly over time. The thus formed time trend in the characteristic value for the output quantity of the internal combustion engine is filtered as a function of the operation of the cylinder banks.