An idea I'm working on to modify and expand TRIZ inventive principles to suit innovation in management, customer experience and marketing challenges (the areas where I help clients with insight and innovation).
| First presented at MindCamp 2009 as a Pecha Kucha.
| Images were purchased from iStockphoto.
I’m sure you are all familiar with this handy tool.Sometimes a more structured approach might be desirable, to ensure that a more exhaustive exploration has occurred.
TRIZ was created / discovered by GenrichAltshuller in USSR in 1946He started by analyzing in detail about 40,000 patents representing real inventiveness to extract the principle that was used.Today, more than 2 million patents have been examined for principles 40 principles discovered Contradiction matrix helps you decide which principles to look at to seek new solutions to your problem
Here’s an example of one of the inventive principles.You can see some real similarities to SCAMPER … Scamper has 7 inventive principles.TRIZ is just much more detailed.
TRIZ seeks to identify contradictions, where one desirable thing creates another undesirable thing.Here’s an example:By using composite materials, a golf club can be made both stronger and lighter.
I want to draw your attention to two things:First – TRIZ concerns technical systemsSecond – the evolution toward ideality Here’s the problem for most of us.We are not dealing with technical systems and materialsAnd there is not likely a single ideal, there are differentiated market positions.
Creative people seem to be able to apply the principles to management problems with some success. However, I think they are reverse engineering. They are seeing examples of innovation and trying to jam them into the TRIZ principles.Their actual method used by Mann and Domb was to review business texts and see if they could find a match. This isn’t the same, in my view, as actually using the principle to get to the innovation.I think it’s awkward. It doesn’t fit. And we aren’t even talking about hydraulics.
In my work, I’m usually thinking about things that have a high degree of intangibility…Like processes and how they affect perceived value.I wanted TRIZ to work for me, but I got stuck.
Then I started to think about being less than pure with it.
So I started to go through the principles and decide which ones seem to help with the kinds of creative problems I and my clients face.And I just dropped the ones that don’t seem that helpful.
I’ve started gathering parameters that make sense in my kind of problem.I’ve started seeking out generic operators that seem to make sense.You might have different lists. This list is not complete. It could include very specific types of psychological value, such as status. Or sensory elements like flavour or scent.
These three examples show a number of innovative principles at work.Perhaps you could have got to this from the existing TRIZ principles, but I think just thinking about sequence would help you to get there faster.The contradiction that Williams has solved is how to deliver a higher quality of food in more of a dining room environment, but still keep it fast, and still keep it inexpensive. And re-sequencing the order of things was one of the ways they got there
This is also an example of self-serve strategy which is a TRIZ principle, but I think this is a more robust principle that has broader applicability to services. Online banking is an example of self-serve, but it hasn’t shifted that much work to the customer. It has given the customer greater access, and automated the work.We can see other examples where people have to fill out their own forms, for example.
In any service industry where there are differentiated positions, this is often one of the elements that is really different.Example – the difference in advice from discount brokerage to financial planner. One of the interesting things to me about advice is that sometimes the value of advice is to increase your choices, and sometimes it is to limit your choices.You could say this is another principle – such as changing quality. Or changing complexity of ingredients. That’s all true as well.
Like … how to have things happen quickly but not feel rushed
I don’t really have a finished model. This is just something I’m working on that I thought would be of interest. And if you have ideas, I’m interested in hearing them.