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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Use TRIZ to unlock creative problem solving Are you new to TRIZ and looking for an easy-to-follow guide on how you can use it to enhance your company's creativity, innovation and problem-solving abilities? Look no further! Written in plain English and packed with tons of accessible and easy-to-follow instruction, TRIZ For Dummies shows you how to use this powerful toolkit to discover all the ways of solving a problem, uncover new concepts and identify previously unseen routes for new product development. An international science that relies on the study of patterns in problems and solutions, TRIZ offers a powerful problem-solving and creativity-generating solution for companies looking to promote innovation, especially in the face of having to do more with less. Inside, you'll find out how to successfully apply this problem-solving toolkit to benefit from the experience of the whole world--not just the spontaneous and occasional creativity of individuals or groups of engineers with an organisation. * Learn to think like a genius with TRIZ * Discover the benefits of TRIZ as a tool for businesses * Find fun and simple exercises for putting TRIZ into practise * Benefit from industry examples of where TRIZ has worked--and how With the help of TRIZ For Dummies, you'll get the skills needed to see the wood for the trees and solve complex problems with creativity, ingenuity and innovation.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
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TRIZ For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester,www.wiley.com
This edition first published 2016
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016931978
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TRIZ For Dummies®
Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/triz to view this book's cheat sheet.
Table of Contents
Cover
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Getting Started with TRIZ
Chapter 1: Going from Zero to TRIZ
Getting to Know TRIZ
Starting Your TRIZ Journey
Mastering TRIZ
Chapter 2: Understanding the Fundamental TRIZ Philosophy
Thinking TRIZ
Understanding the TRIZ Philosophy
Being Systematic and Creative
Part II: Opening Your TRIZ Toolbox
Chapter 3: Solving Contradictions with the 40 Inventive Principles
Uncovering and Understanding Unresolved Conflicts
Solving Technical Contradictions
Getting to Grips with Physical Contradictions
Clever Tricks to Outsmart Contradictions: Using the 40 Inventive Principles
Chapter 4: Applying the Trends of Technical Evolution
Looking More Closely at the Trends
Applying the Trends
Applying the Trends More Generally
Using the Trends to Create Strong Patents
Chapter 5: Improving Ideality by Using Resources
Understanding the Ideality Equation: How TRIZ Defines Value
Understanding the Links Between Benefits, Functions and Solutions
Thinking Resourcefully
Chapter 6: Using the TRIZ Effects Database
Thinking Innovatively with the Prism of TRIZ
Using the Database of Scientific Effects
Inventing with TRIZ
Part III: Thinking Like a Genius
Chapter 7: Breaking Psychological Inertia with the TRIZ Creativity Tools
Recognising Psychological Inertia
Appreciating the Benefits of Psychological Inertia
Beating Psychological Inertia
Understanding and Solving Problems Using Smart Little People
Stretching Your Thinking with Size–Time–Cost
Chapter 8: Thinking in Time and Scale
Stretching Your Thinking in Time and Scale
Understanding Problems in Time and Scale
Finding Novel Solutions in Time and Scale
Learning to Think in Time and Scale
Chapter 9: Living in Utopia (then Coming Back to Reality)
Defining the Ideal Outcome
Taking a Step Towards Reality with Ideal Systems
Making Sensible Decisions by Considering All Benefits, Costs and Harms
Chapter 10: Problem Solving and Being Creative with Others
Going for What You Really Want
Thinking in Extremes
Being Persistent in the Face of Failure
Sharing and Developing Ideas with Other People
Part IV: Understanding, Defining and Solving Difficult Problems with TRIZ
Chapter 11: Applying the TRIZ Problem-Solving Process
Logically and Systematically Solving Problems
Climbing the Problem-Solving Steps
Defining your problem correctly
Generating Solutions
Ranking and Developing Solutions
Solving Difficult Problems Effectively in a Team
Chapter 12: Getting to Grips with Your Problems with Function Analysis
Making Complex Problems Simple
Building a Function Analysis Diagram
Uncovering Conflicts: Putting Contradictions in Context
Understanding How Everything Fits Together
Using Function Analysis
Chapter 13: Solving Problems using the TRIZ Standard Solutions
Defining a Subject–action–Object
Categorising Problems
Dealing with Harmful Actions
Improving Insufficient Actions
Measuring and Detecting
Applying the Standard Solutions
Chapter 14: Trimming for Elegant, Low-Cost Solutions
Making Things Better and Cheaper
Creating Elegant Solutions
Trimming to Infinity and Beyond
Trimming to Create Strong Intellectual Property
Part V: The Part of Tens
Chapter 15: Ten Pitfalls to Avoid
Thinking TRIZ Doesn’t Apply to You
Waiting for the ‘Right’ Problem
Starting Too Big
Tackling Problems for Which You Can’t Implement Solutions
Tackling Problems without Involving the Problem Owner
Trying to Solve Problems When You Don’t Understand the Issue or the Technology
Trying to Solve Problems When You Lack Crucial Knowledge
Working on a Problem That’s Already Been Solved
Undertaking TRIZ by Stealth
Giving Up Too Soon
Chapter 16: Ten Tips for Getting Started with TRIZ
Learn It
Use It
Start Small
Attend a Workshop
Think and Talk TRIZ
Find a Friend
Fail Safely
Be Bold
Fail Better
Reflect
Part VI: Appendixes
Appendix A: The 40 Inventive Principles
Inventive Principle 1: Segmentation
Inventive Principle 2: Taking Out
Inventive Principle 3: Local Quality
Inventive Principle 4: Asymmetry
Inventive Principle 5: Merging
Inventive Principle 6: Multi-Function
Inventive Principle 7: Nested Doll
Inventive Principle 8: Counterweight
Inventive Principle 9: Prior Counteraction
Inventive Principle 10: Prior Action
Inventive Principle 11: Cushion in Advance
Inventive Principle 12: Equal Potential
Inventive Principle 13: The Other Way Round
Inventive Principle 14: Spheres and Curves
Inventive Principle 15: Dynamism
Inventive Principle 16: Partial or Excessive Action
Inventive Principle 17: Another Dimension
Inventive Principle 18: Mechanical Vibration
Inventive Principle 19: Periodic Action
Inventive Principle 20: Continuous Useful Action
Inventive Principle 21: Rushing Through
Inventive Principle 22: Blessing in Disguise
Inventive Principle 23: Feedback
Inventive Principle 24: Intermediary
Inventive Principle 25: Self-service
Inventive Principle 26: Copying
Inventive Principle 27: Cheap, Short-Living Objects
Inventive Principle 28: Replace Mechanical System
Inventive Principle 29: Pneumatics and Hydraulics
Inventive Principle 30: Flexible Membranes and Thin Films
Inventive Principle 31: Porous Materials
Inventive Principle 32: Colour Change
Inventive Principle 33: Uniform Material
Inventive Principle 34: Discarding and Recovering
Inventive Principle 35: Parameter Change
Inventive Principle 36: Phase Changes
Inventive Principle 37: Thermal Expansion
Inventive Principle 38: Boosted Interactions
Inventive Principle 39: Inert Atmosphere
Inventive Principle 40: Composite Structures
Appendix B: The Contradiction Matrix
Appendix C: The 39 Parameters of the Contradiction Matrix
Appendix D: The Separation Principles
Appendix E: The Oxford TRIZ Standard Solutions
Solutions for Dealing with Harms
Solutions for Improving Insufficiency
Solutions for Detection and Measurement
About the Author
Cheat Sheet
Advertisement Page
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Introduction
Are you looking for a better way to solve problems or interested in developing your creative ability? Or are you seeking a method for generating innovative thinking, in yourself and in the team around you? Perhaps your organisation has become so lean and efficient that you don’t know how to get people thinking innovatively again. Or maybe you want to find a way to encourage everyone to share and develop ideas together as a team. If any of these ring true, or you’re just looking for a novel new way of navigating the many rapids you encounter along the river of life, TRIZ will help you. You’ve come to the right book!
TRIZ is the outcome of extensive research into patents and scientific journals. It has a wonderful engineering and scientific pedigree, and as a result, many case studies and examples you’ll hear about are technical.
However, and this is the important thing, it works – and I’ve seen it work – on any kind of problem: management problems, business problems, social problems, even personal problems. What TRIZ gives you is the ability to think very clearly and creatively. You unpick thorny issues, define your problem correctly and are then given useful suggestions regarding how these problems may be solved. You use your brain to the best of its ability and, in fact, many of the TRIZ tools are based around changing the way you think by repeating the thinking patterns of the most creative and successful problem solvers. These principles are helpful regardless of the subject matter.
TRIZ gives you both skills in creative thinking and confidence in your creative ability. After reading this book you’ll be able to put some TRIZ magic into practice and enhance and extend your natural creativity and problem-solving ability.
TRIZ is a Russian acronym that stands for ‘Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch’, which translated into English means ‘Theory of Inventive Problem Solving’. As this is a bit of a mouthful, we generally use the acronym, but it’s helpful to know what it stands for; in fact, TRIZ is more than just a theory, it’s a practical toolkit, a method, a set of processes and even a bit of a philosophy to help you understand and solve problems in clever ways.
Genrich Altshuller, the mastermind behind TRIZ and a very clever engineer, scientist, inventor and writer (of both TRIZ books and science fiction), asserted that ‘anyone can be creative’. TRIZ shows you how!
About This Book
This book isn’t the ultimate guide to TRIZ. Instead, it gives you a short (and hopefully fun) introduction to the TRIZ tools and processes, based on how it can be used (and how I use it at work), rather than explaining every detail of the theory. You can start anywhere because each chapter stands alone and provides insights into new ways of thinking about problems and finding solutions. As you read you’ll come across occasional sidebars, which contain additional information about the topics at hand (and, if you’re lucky, the occasional joke). Reading these is optional because they’re not necessary to understanding the main text.
Most books about TRIZ are written from a technical starting point. I read many when I first encountered TRIZ but found them hard to read, because most of the examples were based on engineering problems that I struggled to understand. Even the non-technical examples were often described in language that seemed very technical to me (most TRIZ experts are engineers) and didn’t reflect how simple the tools can be to pick up and use – for anyone. So in this book, I make things as straightforward as I can.
As TRIZ has always been used for any kind of problem solving, I thought it was time for a general book that even a dummy like me would understand. To that end, every example is general and non-technical. Even when I describe a technical system, I use everyday items that you’ve probably used, such as a cheese grater or toilet brush (not together!). I’m regularly asked, ‘Will TRIZ work for me even though I’m not an engineer?’ I wrote this book to (hopefully) show you that the answer is yes! And to start to show you how.
Because I describe things as simply as possible, I may use slightly different terminology to what you might find elsewhere. TRIZ was first conceived in Russian and then translated into other languages, not always consistently. On top of that, it’s developed by a whole community, not one individual, and isn’t owned by any one person. As a result, a number of different terms are used for the same tools, and some tools are arranged in different ways. Some derivative approaches also exist, whereby people have tried to extend or develop TRIZ and created their own toolkits and methods as a result. In this book, I describe ‘classical TRIZ’, which is based only on the framework developed in the original research.
The terminology in this book is based on the Oxford TRIZ approach: classical TRIZ described simply (with nothing added or taken away).
Foolish Assumptions
I make only one assumption about you: that you’re interested in learning something new. This is the first step to thinking creatively and becoming a better problem solver – and you’ve demonstrated it very effectively by picking up this book!
Your expertise or discipline is irrelevant; however, some of the technically based tools are easier to grasp if you have some technical knowledge or at least an understanding of how the physical world works, that is, an interest in science. That said, the examples I use are broad enough that anyone will get them – I wrote the book for a dummy like me, after all!
The only other useful attribute is that you’ve encountered problems, but then, who hasn’t?
Icons Used in This Book
To help you pick out the information most useful to you, I’ve used a few graphical icons in the book to highlight key details. Whenever you see the following icons in the margin, this is what you can expect from that paragraph:
A TRIZ tip or trick for improving your thinking or developing your problem-solving skills.
This icon reminds you of something that you should bear in mind when applying a specific bit of TRIZ thinking.
This icon warns you of common mistakes or pitfalls that could trip you up when you’re applying TRIZ to a problem.
Throughout the book, I’ve included helpful real-life examples. Many other TRIZ books focus on engineering problems, but I’ve applied my TRIZ examples in a broader context.
Beyond the Book
In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this product also comes with some access-anywhere goodies on the web. Check out these features:
Cheat Sheet (
www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/triz
):
A handy little guide to refer to as you read through this book.
Dummies.com articles (
www.dummies.com/extras/triz
):
You can also find relevant online articles that supplement each part in this book with additional tips and techniques.
Where to Go from Here
If you’re not sure where to begin and don’t fancy the usual practice of ‘Start at the beginning’, here are my top suggestions:
The 40 Inventive Principles are the most famous TRIZ tool, and are used to solve contradictions.
Chapter 3
is a good place to start as it gives you not only an overview of this popular and powerful tool but also some background into the logic of TRIZ.
If you work on developing new products,
Chapter 4
, which covers the Trends of Technical Evolution, shows you the likely directions your systems will take in the future.
Chapter 7
offers a good introduction to the psychological blocks to creativity and how to get over them, using the suite of TRIZ creativity tools.
Chapter 8
introduces Thinking in Time and Scale, a deceptively simple tool for stretching your thinking, restructuring your view of a problem and generating innovative solutions.
Having said that, you can start at the very beginning because, as the fresh-faced trainee nun in The Sound of Music says, ‘it’s a very good place to start’!
Part I
Getting Started with TRIZ
Visit www.dummies.com for free access to great Dummies content online.
In this part …
Get an introduction to the TRIZ tools, process and fundamental logic of innovative problem solving.
Understand the TRIZ philosophy and learn how to start thinking like a genius.
Chapter 1
Going from Zero to TRIZ
In This Chapter
Appreciating the powerful TRIZ logic
Getting going with TRIZ problem solving
Developing ninja problem-solving skills
We’ve all got problems, right? And largely we can work out how to solve them, even when the problems seem really tough. Human beings are designed to be problem solvers, and we’re generally really good at it, so why do we need to go back to the drawing board and learn a new way to tackle problems?
Well, because it’s possible to learn from each other – and from problem solvers in the past. TRIZ is an attempt to try to cut across different disciplines and ‘bottle’ the fundamental logic of problem solving for everyone no matter what their job, speciality or area of expertise.
The greatest achievements in the arts and sciences have come about because people have been able to build on the previous work of others. When developments and breakthroughs have occurred – whether the drawing of perspective in art or the theory of gravity or the discovery of DNA – they’ve been shared so they can be built upon rather than rediscovered over and over again. However, these developments, and the preceding problems and solutions, are typically described in the language of the discipline in which they happened. As a result, only people with specialist knowledge are truly capable of understanding these developments. While this situation’s great for them, it cuts out everyone else. Because problem solving is seen as being specific for each discipline – the assumption being that lawyers, for example, must face very different problems to chemists – people tend to stay within their own industry and field of expertise when they face problems and are looking for solutions.
TRIZ takes the opposite approach.
One of the cornerstones of TRIZ is that the same problems occur again and again across different disciplines and applications, and that people are constantly reinventing the wheel by solving them from scratch every time. At the heart of TRIZ is the belief that, if you can understand how your problem is similar to someone else’s, you can reapply his clever solutions.
When you use TRIZ, you’re able to access the clever thinking of genius problem solvers from all areas of science, engineering and technology and can reapply what they’ve learned. You don’t reinvent the wheel – you find new and exciting ways of and ideas for using clever existing concepts to give you what you want.
And generating new ideas will be very easy for you because you have TRIZ. If you need solutions to a problem, you can just apply a simple thinking tool. If you hit a dead end, hit the problem with TRIZ. If you have a solution that looks pretty good, improve it even more by teasing out its problems and solving them. You can always do more TRIZ, which means that solutions and improvements are always out there to be discovered. It’s an exciting journey, and you and the people you’re making it with will appear to be geniuses as you find the right solutions to all the problems you encounter along the way.
Getting to Know TRIZ
TRIZ subdues complexity and keeps detail in its place. TRIZ logic demands that you have a clear idea of where you are and where you’re going, which helps you keep your eye on the prize and avoid getting tripped up with irrelevant detail, waylaid by trivial issues or seduced by premature solutions.
Increasing Ideality
The main goal of TRIZ is to increase Ideality. Ideality is the TRIZ equation for working out how good something is, as shown in Figure 1-1.
Illustration by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Figure 1-1: The TRIZ Ideality equation.
The Ideality of a system is the ratio of its benefits compared to its costs and harms:
Benefits
are all the outputs that you want, expressed as outcomes (not solutions).
Costs
are all the inputs required to create a system (not just money but also time, materials, cleverness and so on).
Harms
are all the outputs from your system that you don’t want (even neutral things that aren’t actively harmful).
A system in TRIZ is a very general term: it means any kind of product or process that’s created and used to meet a need.
Ideality is important because it’s very simple, and very brutal. It holds in the front of your mind the reason you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing. The benefits are the outcomes that you want but no mention is made of how you get those benefits. That’s deliberate because it keeps your focus on the outcomes you want and not on exactly how you’ll achieve them. This approach stops you becoming enraptured with solutions too soon, and always reminds you that other ways of getting what you want may exist. When you think about benefits, you consider all the things you want and not merely the outcomes you believe are achievable. This drives you continually to find new benefits you can deliver, and ways to increase the levels of benefits you’re currently achieving.
You’re also aware of all the downsides associated with the various ways of getting what you want. This is important because it forces you to look for problems, which means in turn that you’ll be able to solve the problems and improve your system continually, in an iterative way.
Ideality identifies two kinds of problems:
Costs (all inputs)
Harms (all outputs you don’t want)
TRIZ is always looking for ways to reduce costs; not just money but also time, parts, materials, effort – any kind of input required to create your system, in fact. TRIZ thinking pushes you towards creating simple, elegant systems and solutions to problems, which often involves finding innovative ways of getting what you want. While many traditional approaches also consider both costs and benefits (or sometimes functions), thinking about harms provides additional power.
Harms are all outputs you don’t want – they needn’t be actively harmful but are things produced by your system that aren’t useful to you. Examples include things that may seem ‘neutral’ initially, such as heat from a laptop or noise from a washing machine, any complicated features you don’t use on a smartphone, and waste or even potential risk. Thinking about harms encourages a more holistic view of your system, in which you consider its impact in the bigger picture. It also drives you towards simpler, more efficient systems, because all harms are things you’re fundamentally paying for in some way: heat from a lightbulb may not be actively harmful but it is wasted energy, and finding a way to reduce that heat output will result in either more light (increased benefit) or reduced energy use (reduced cost).
All TRIZ tools exist to improve Ideality. They increase benefits, reduce costs or reduce harms – or all three! Ideality is referred to throughout this book because, while you can use it as a standalone tool (see Chapters 5 and 9 for details), it’s also more of a fundamental way of understanding TRIZ and its purpose.
Ideality expresses in a nutshell the duality of TRIZ. On the one hand, you have one eye on utopia and all the benefits you want (even though you know you probably won’t get them). On the other hand, you’re searching for all the problems that exist in your real-world system (so you can get rid of them). TRIZ helps you connect fantasy and reality: you allow yourself to imagine perfection and engage with the nitty-gritty of practical systems. Obviously, this behaviour is a contradiction; however, TRIZ says the world is full of contradictions and you shouldn’t be afraid of them, ignore them in the hope that they’ll go away or compromise too soon in an attempt to resolve them. Ideality is a concept that balances the good and bad in any kind of system, and holds them together at the same time. Understanding and appreciating the conflict between the good and the bad allows you to work in an ambiguous, creative and potentially very fruitful space.
Uncovering patterns in human creativity
The logic underpinning TRIZ is that patterns exist across problems and the solutions that have previously been found to those problems. If you can understand how your situation is similar to previous situations, you can short-circuit the problem-solving process and generate very creative solutions.
TRIZ was observed, not invented. The earliest research found that the same problems occur again and again across different industries, and that very similar solutions are found to these problems (Chapter 2 gives you the lowdown on how TRIZ was developed).
For any problem you encounter, chances are that someone else will have seen something similar in the past – and found a solution. Even more excitingly, the solutions people come up with also exhibit similarities. What the TRIZ community has captured are the patterns that exist in both the kinds of problems that people address and the way in which they solve them. These patterns have been encapsulated in a series of thinking tools that the rest of us can apply to solve our problems.
Learning to think in the abstract
All TRIZ problem-solving tools help you move between thinking about very specific, real-world problems and considering more general, conceptual ways of looking at those problems.
You can view this process as a journey whereby, rather than attempting to go from where you are now directly to where you want to get to, you take a step out of reality into an abstract world. You then understand your problem in a more conceptual way and can create a generalised ‘model’ of it that identifies its true nature. When you’ve done this, you can look for abstract, generalised solutions to your problem, and then work out how to turn these abstract solutions into real, practical solutions. Lots of creativity tools exist to help you model conceptual solutions, but TRIZ is unique in providing lists of conceptual solutions based on previous successful innovations that you can apply at this point to find the right solutions to your problem (see the nearby sidebar, ‘The four solution tools: Listy loveliness or 100 answers to everything’). After you’ve modelled your problem in a conceptual way, you’re directed to a small number of conceptual solutions that will be useful for that type of problem. This process may seem a bit long-winded, but I promise it isn’t! The time you spend grappling with your problem and modelling it in a conceptual way aids your clarity of thought and understanding and ensures the real problem is explicit. Looking up the solutions is easy, and only takes a few minutes. The time spent generating solutions is then enormous fun: you’re being creative and thinking of answers to your hardest questions and problems but are also focusing all that brainpower and creativity in the most useful places – where you’re most likely to find inventive and creative solutions.
A number of TRIZ tools help you take a specific problem and create a conceptual model of it. When you’ve created that model, you can then look up how people have solved this kind of problem in the past. A number of ways of solving this problem that other people have used successfully in the past will exist. You can then take these situations and reapply them to your situation.
Part of the power of TRIZ thinking and the TRIZ tools comes from this moving between the real world and the conceptual, more abstract world. This process is called using the Prism of TRIZ, as shown in Figure 1-2.
Illustration by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Figure 1-2: The Prism of TRIZ.
The four solution tools: Listy loveliness or 100 answers to everything
The completely unique aspect of TRIZ is the lists of solutions derived from patent databases: the 40 Inventive Principles, the 8 Trends of Technical Evolution, the 76 Standard Solutions and the Effects Database. These lists comprise the most clever and inventive solutions discovered in patents and scientific journals. Specific solutions to specific problems were distilled into the essence of what made them clever; solutions such as vibrate something, make it more flexible, insulate from something harmful. As well as generalising the solutions found in patents, the TRIZ community also described the problems it was solving in a conceptual rather than technical or scientific way, such as ‘something gets better and something else gets worse’ (a Technical Contradiction) or ‘this is useful but not quite good enough’ (an Insufficient Useful Action). A huge amount of work was then carried out cross-referencing the kinds of problems that re-occurred and the solutions that were most commonly used to solve them.
When you have a specific problem, you first convert it to a general problem. You then look up the general solutions to your problem in one of the four solution tool lists. You’re directed to just a handful of conceptual solutions to your problem, which you have to convert into something real, practical and tangible in your specific situation – stepping through the Prism of TRIZ (see Figure 1-2). If finding solutions is like digging for buried treasure, TRIZ supplies the map. It shows you where to dig first: the places in which you’re most likely to find the most clever solutions.
The TRIZ lists contain approximately 100 solutions. The mathematically minded among you will notice that this figure is less than the number you’d get if you added up all the solutions in the lists above – and that’s because the lists of tools overlap. As a result, you don’t need to use all the tools when looking for solutions: applying two or three will give you good coverage of the solution space.
Connecting conceptual thinking with your knowledge and experience
Using your experience and knowledge is a critical element of TRIZ. It’s not just a question of taking someone else’s solution and applying it directly; rather, you’re given a conceptual prompt or trigger.
You then have to activate all your domain knowledge and experience of the problem and the situation in order to turn that conceptual solution into something real. The conceptual solutions need to connect with your practical expertise in order to become useful. As a result, TRIZ makes the best use of your experience – it is not a substitute for it.
The TRIZ problem-solving process utilises your knowledge, practical experience and expertise to the best of their ability. The TRIZ solution tools focus and enhance your experience, so that you use your knowledge in new and inventive ways. If you have no knowledge or experience in a particular area, you won’t be able to solve problems in that area with TRIZ because you don’t know how things work.
Here’s something to bear in mind, as it applies to you as well as me: for all my TRIZ superpowers, I can’t solve my clients’ problems for them, as I don’t have their domain knowledge. I can only help them understand and define their problems with TRIZ and look up the suggested solutions. That last step in the Prism of TRIZ – the leap from conceptual to practical solutions – is completely up to them. TRIZ stimulates their creativity and, as a result, they’re able to generate insight, new thinking and many innovative solutions.
TRIZ enhances and develops expertise
While TRIZ can’t replace expertise, it may well help it develop. One interesting observation from TRIZ workshops is that when teams of different people are working on a problem, those who have experience in the same field but without deep knowledge of the problem or particular area will often generate solutions that are both highly innovative and highly practical. When you’re looking for solutions to a problem, therefore, don’t just involve the experts. Instead, also involve people who have general domain knowledge in your area, even if they don’t have specific knowledge of the problem at hand. TRIZ will help them generate useful solutions. This also suggests that if you’re just starting out in your career, TRIZ will help you generate the same kind of solutions as experts in your field. You’ll also have the benefit of developing flexibility of thinking as you gain expertise in your area.
What’s so heartening about this is that because TRIZ shows you how to apply your knowledge in new ways, you’ll make better use of TRIZ and become a better problem solver as your career progresses. When you develop very deep expertise in an area, it can become like a narrow pit in which your thinking is stuck: you know solutions to many, many problems and you can think of them easily. So easily, in fact, that thinking of anything new is difficult. TRIZ helps you generate those solutions based on your experience, and then move beyond them to apply your expertise in novel ways. For those of us who aren’t getting any younger (which, let’s face it, is all of us), this is good news. It means that, once you’ve learned TRIZ, as your experience and expertise grow so will your creativity and problem-solving ability.
Going beyond your own experience
One of the interesting things about different disciplines is that they often take different approaches to identifying problems and coming up with new ideas. If you put a teacher, a doctor, an engineer, a physicist, a mathematician and a philosopher together to solve a problem, they’ll all have very different ideas about how best to examine it and find solutions (many jokes are based on this premise, and you can find one at the end of Chapter 2!). Your profession influences how you look at problems and the kind of solutions you generate.
If you want to improve the behaviour of a naughty child, how you characterise the problem and generate solutions depends on your perspective. Consider the perspectives of a parent (who needs to get everyone to school on time and teach the child patterns of behaviour for the longterm), a teacher (who may need to manage a whole classroom and get children to learn), a child psychologist (who may focus on the underlying causes of the naughty behaviour) and an anthropologist (who may be interested in how children and parents interact and communicate and what this says about the local culture). None of these approaches is wrong. Each has something good about it and will bring a different perspective to the problem that’s new and interesting. However, everyone thinks their approach is ‘the right one’, and will tackle problems according to the kind of solutions they’re familiar with (as the nearby sidebar, ‘Tackling the glass of water problem’, suggests, when you have a hammer, everything can look like a nail).
What the TRIZ problem-solving process helps you do is bring together all these different approaches, get everyone communicating effectively and use and share the right knowledge to find the right solutions to the right problem.
Tackling the glass of water problem
Here’s an ice breaker to demonstrate different approaches to problem solving: put a glass of water on a table and ask people to remove the water without moving either the glass or the table.
Different people generally come up with different solutions. Mechanical engineers do things to the glass (for example, break it, drill a hole in the glass and the table, vibrate the glass); chemists do things to the water (for example, apply hydrolysis so that the water is divided into hydrogen and oxygen, change the water chemically into something else); biologists use living things (for example, have a person suck it up with a straw, put flowers in the glass to draw up the water). I encountered a parent who suggested leaving a toddler alone in the room for two minutes. ‘You’ll come back in, ‘she asserted,‘ and the water will be all over the floor and the child will say, “I didn’t touch it!”’
This problem can be tackled in lots of ways. Applying TRIZ to solving it will help you capture the knowledge of all the people in the team and go beyond to find new solutions.
Thinking functionally
Thinking functionally is a key skill that TRIZ helps you develop. Many people think functionally automatically, and in many technical fields this ability is taught explicitly. It’s a useful method for uncovering the connection between what you want (benefits) with the real world (existing systems). Thinking in functions requires a more abstract way of looking at problems that’s still very practical and useful.
Thinking functionally is at the heart of TRIZ, and Chapter 5 provides a good introduction to understanding functions. Chapter 6 shows you how to find new functions; the most powerful tool for problem solving is Function Analysis (covered in Chapter 12); and Chapters 13 and 14 provide you with the tools for developing and improving functions.
A benefit is an outcome that you want – with no description of how you get it. Thinking in functions is one step towards considering how you can achieve a benefit. Many ways of delivering functions exist and, as a result, you’ll come up with many potential solutions.
Let’s say the benefit you’re looking for is a delicious cup of tea. Many functions are required to deliver this benefit; for example, you need to heat water, provide a container in which to hold the hot water, infuse the tea leaves in the hot water, remove the tea leaves from the tea, provide another container from which to drink the tea and supply the means to add milk, lemon or sugar, if desired. Lots of different solutions can provide these functions. Thinking about all the functions you want means that not only will you see more possibilities for new solutions but you’ll also ensure that you capture all the requirements.
Starting Your TRIZ Journey
When you’re first starting out with TRIZ, the easiest thing to do is pick up one tool and learn how to use it. Choose the one you think sounds most interesting. After that, add to your toolbox bit by bit. Each tool offers different benefits, and, while they do comprise a coherent step-by-step process (see Chapter 11 for details), you need to understand each tool individually before you can start putting them together.
Getting a handle on the TRIZ tools
Tools help you do a job, whether you’re a carpenter, car mechanic, dressmaker or TRIZ wizard. Three different classes of TRIZ tools are available to help you achieve your goals:
The tools based on patent analysis and scientific journals
The tools developed to help you model your problem conceptually
The thinking tools based on modelling thought processes
The tools based on patent analysis and scientific journals, capturing the clever solutions people have generated in the past in a conceptual form, are the:
40 Inventive Principles
8 Trends of Technical Evolution
TRIZ Effects Database
76 Standard Solutions
The following tools help you model your problem conceptually, so that you can strip away unnecessary detail and access the right solutions to your problems from one of the four tools above:
Contradictions
Function Analysis
X-Factor
Finally, come the thinking tools based on modelling the thought processes of the most creative problem solvers:
Thinking in Time and Scale
Ideal Outcome
Resources
Size–Time–Cost
Smart Little People
Each of the tools and approaches has different benefits and will be more useful for certain types of problem.
Reapplying proven knowledge to deliver innovative new solutions
The problem-solving tools based on patent analysis and scientific journals – the 40 Inventive Principles, the Trends, the Effects Database and the Standard Solutions – are TRIZ’s crown jewels. Even the idea behind them – to look at cataloguing known success – is incredibly clever and innovative.
Let’s take a closer look at these crown jewels:
The
40 Inventive Principles
(
Chapter 3
) are the clever ways of solving particularly hard problems: contradictions. When you have a problem that seems completely impossible, you probably have an undiscovered contradiction – you want two connected things which are in conflict. If you uncover and define the contradiction, the relevant 40 Inventive Principles will direct you to resolving the contradiction and finding new ways of getting what you want. The 40 Inventive Principles are also useful when you make a change to improve something but then, disaster, something else goes wrong as a result. You can also use them to develop and improve existing solutions.
The
8 Trends of Technical Evolution
(
Chapter 4
) are useful when you want to develop, evolve and improve existing systems (products, processes or services). The Trends help you think about where you are now conceptually – and where you should be going. Some of the Trends are useful for understanding the maturity of your system and the best places to focus attention for future development; some are conceptual triggers of the likely future directions your systems will take. The Trends are particularly useful for developing next-generation systems, planning the future for your system development and for any patent or intellectual property work. The Trends are one of the easiest tools for people new to TRIZ to pick up and use immediately.
The
Database of Scientific Effects
(
Chapter 6
) organises available online knowledge in a unique way to make it easily accessible, and is continually growing. Only so many ways have been uncovered for doing certain things, such as measuring weight or evaporating a liquid, and these have been captured and organised as simple ‘how to?’ questions and answers in this database of scientific and engineering effects. This list is useful when you want to know how to do something, usually something new; for example, when you’re looking for a new function for a system or want to find another way of doing something because the ways with which you’re familiar aren’t good enough or are associated with big problems. The Effects Database is also useful when inventing, which is essentially looking for new functions. You probably won’t use the Effects Database every day, but it’s very useful when you do need it!
The
76 Standard Solutions
(
Chapters 13
and
14
) are the ways in which you deal with three kinds of problem: a harmful action (something bad is happening that you don’t want to happen); an insufficient action (something good isn’t as good as you’d like it to be); or a need to measure or detect something (and applying conventional methods is hard or impossible). The Standard Solutions require a good understanding of how your system really operates on a functional level. They’re useful for improving systems that don’t have any big contradictions, so they are good for problem solving with mature and/or very complex systems with multiple interactions, particularly if you need to significantly reduce cost and complexity, where the Trimming Rules (
Chapter 14
) will be the most useful.
The fact that these tools have been distilled into relatively simple and easy lists so that successful innovations can be reused is very exciting, and one of the reasons why people often start describing TRIZ in relation to them (most commonly the 40 ways of solving contradictions). These tools were developed from technical problems and solutions; however, they needn’t only be applied to these kinds of problems. Some of the same reasons that make technical problems hard to solve may also apply to other kinds of problems. For that reason, the clever solutions found can also be applied to those other kinds of problem.
These lists were derived from ideas created by people – not artificial intelligence or alien technology or divine revelation. One way of looking at them is as revealing patterns in human creativity rather than in technical innovation. Reapplying these technical innovations in other fields seems very – well – TRIZzy!
Modelling problems conceptually
In order to apply any of the tools mentioned in the preceding section, you first need to use TRIZ to understand your problems in a new way. The TRIZ tools for modelling your problems in an abstract way produce very powerful and clear thinking.
Follow the steps for implementing these tools and they’ll guide you to understand and view your problem in a very different light.
These tools are:
Contradictions
, which are the problems that are getting in the way of you achieving everything you want. You put in checks to make sure a process is done correctly but then it takes longer. You want a big screen when you’re reading something on your smartphone but a small device when it’s in your pocket. What’s important to bear in mind is that these contradictions only exist in the current ways of delivering what you want. People have always faced contradictions, and typically they reduce expectations and compromise, but every now and again very innovative people have found other ways of resolving contradictions that are so clever they’re like tricks; they’ve broken out of the traditional way of thinking and found a really inventive new solution. All these solutions are summarised in the 40 Inventive Principles, and to access the solutions most relevant in your situation, you need to uncover and then define your contradictions. Doing so will allow you to break out of your traditional patterns of thinking and find new ways of getting what you want. Understanding contradictions is essential when you encounter really hard problems and just can’t find a solution. They’re also useful when you’re inventing, improving imperfect solutions and encouraging creative thinking.
TRIZ Function Analysis
, which is the means of understanding your system thoroughly. You map all its current functions, identifying both what’s good (useful actions) and bad (harmful, insufficient or excessive actions). You then have a list of problems, defined in a very clear way, and are able to use a number of the problem-solving tools, most commonly the Standard Solutions (
Chapters 13
and
14
) but also the 40 Inventive Principles (
Chapter 3
), if the Function Analysis has uncovered Contradictions. TRIZ Function Analysis is essential in any rigorous problem-solving work, because it uncovers and clearly highlights all potential problems and works best on systems that are real (rather than potential) and well understood, based on one snapshot in time, and it works on anything from new inventions to complex processes. It’s useful for understanding the whole problem space and sharing that information within and across teams, for uncovering root causes of problems and charting complex situations. Function Analysis is essential in any system improvement work because it can be used to predict the impact of proposed changes and communicate both the situation as it is and how any new system would work.
X-Factor
(
Chapter 6
), which is one of the simplest innovation tools for modelling problems but forms the basis for accessing a number of the solution tools to help you find what you’re looking for. When you define an X-Factor, you define the function which will solve your problem. Doing so means you both focus on what you hope to achieve and identify it in a way that’s both very precise and completely independent of any current system or technology. This is important as it breaks your psychological inertia by starting with what you want and gives you a focused question to find the answer to in the Effects Database (
Chapter 6
), your resources (
Chapter 5
), the Standard Solutions (
Chapter 13
) or even a simple Internet search. The X-Factor is useful when you’re inventing, improving a new system or looking for something you don’t know how to deliver. It’s particularly useful when you’re dealing with smaller problems to which you need to find a solution quickly.
Supercharging your thinking
The simple TRIZ tools based on creative thinking techniques are powerful ways of shifting your thinking and developing your creative ability. They’re a distillation of cleverness of a different kind to the solution tools.
When you think TRIZ, you start with what you want and then work out how to get it. As a fundamental philosophy that’s very important, but it’s also used as a formal tool in the form of the Ideal Outcome.
Here are the thinking tools available to you:
Ideal Outcome
(
Chapter 9
) is the means of capturing all the things you want. It makes you consider what you’d get if you could have everything you wanted. In terms of problem solving, you’re looking to identify all the outcomes you want – all benefits, no solutions. This helps open your thinking to uncover all benefits, to think clearly, to challenge constraints on what’s possible and to ensure you’ve set the right scope for your problem solving. The Ideal Outcome can be used as a very simple standalone tool for encouraging creative thinking, but it’s also an essential early and practical step for every single TRIZ problem-solving or innovation session. It’s of particular importance when you’re attempting to create something new (for example, new product development) and to ensure team endorsement of goals and required outcomes.
Thinking in Time and Scale
(
Chapter 8
) is one of the quickest and simplest ways to think like a genius. Stretching your view of a situation to encompass not only your system but also the big picture and the detail, and how these three levels of scale are changing over time, will enable you to think with great clarity, see new connections, identify problems and ensure you’re solving the right problem. When you’ve learned how to think in time and scale, it changes your thinking forever. It can also be easily used by people with very little (or no) TRIZ knowledge. Thinking in Time and Scale is another powerful tool for helping teams gain consensus on what’s happening, understanding a problem and communicating it simply, and finding very innovative new solutions.
Resource thinking
(
Chapter 5
) is another tool that becomes a reflex as well as a formal tool. TRIZ thinking always pushes towards elegant self-systems to deliver what you want, and the easiest way to achieve this is via clever use of available resources. Using existing resources is particularly important in cost-saving situations and where strict regulations make it hard to bring in new technologies, components or substances, or changing the way things are currently done is extremely difficult. Resource thinking is also of particular importance when moving towards more sustainable solutions: everything about, within and around your system (even the problems) is made to work hard for you.
Size–Time–Cost
(
Chapter 7
) is an exaggeration thinking tool that challenges your perceptions of your constraints. People are often far more pragmatic about the solutions they suggest than they realise and what Size–Time–Cost does is stretch your thinking to the extremes but with some simple suggestions to direct you (can you guess how? The clue’s in the name!). You imagine that your solution could be infinitely large or infinitely small – takes forever or works instantly – is subject to an unlimited budget or no budget at all – and then translate these notions into real terms. Size–Time–Cost is a very quick and simple tool for thinking creatively and generating unexpected (and often unexpectedly practical) new ideas.
Smart Little People
(
Chapter 7
) helps you both to understand your problem and find solutions, and to model both. You imagine your problem is made up of little people. Naughty ones come in and cause problems, and you capture what goes wrong as a result. Helpful little people then come in and solve the problems, and you translate this imaginary useful behaviour into concrete and practical solutions. Smart Little People is another powerful standalone creativity tool that can generate solutions very quickly, but it’s also very powerful for breaking psychological inertia and allowing you to look at your situation from a completely different perspective.
Whereas the solution tools were derived from analysis of actual clever solutions (as described in patent records and scientific journals), the tools for creative thinking resulted from watching very clever and creative people at work. What was observed was that creative problem solving is the result of certain patterns of thinking. The TRIZ community detected these patterns and then codified them into formal thinking tools that everyone can put into practice, to think like a genius on demand.
One of the tricks many of the creativity tools employ is to stretch your thinking beyond the probable, or even the possible, into the realms of wild extremes. Do not resist this process! This step is designed to take you out of your comfort zone and into a new mode of thinking. The step after this wild thinking is to bring it back to reality. When you’ve become more familiar with the process, you can let your imagination fly with more confidence (because you’ve seen it work) and thinking in this way will come more naturally, and flexibly, until it becomes second nature to mimic this typical form of genius thinking.
Mastering TRIZ
So, you’ve got the basics under your belt. What do you do next to develop your TRIZ ninja skills? Read on!
Putting the tools together in the TRIZ problem-solving process
The most important thing you need to know about the TRIZ process for solving problems is that it’s possible to have a process! And, more importantly, a generic process that works on any kind of problem.
