Advanced TRIZ Day Three
Learning how to use the Oxford Creativity Problem Pack for Problem Understanding, Definition and Solving
This workshop follows on from the first two days Basic TRIZ workshop. Click here for more information on the Basic TRIZ workshop.
Day Three includes Time and Space and its use as a tool for anticipating and preventing problems and resource analysis. Delegates also learn how to use the Oxford Creativity Solution Pack. The first Section which covers What you Want is practised using either case studies or your company’s submitted problems.
Understanding Problems
The TRIZ tools for understanding and defining problems and recognising the relevant information are powerful for Management problems as well as Technical problems.
Inventive Engineers - Who Think in Time and Space
Altshuller observed that about one in ten engineers were very creative, and that they saw lots more solution possibilities than most people when faced with a problem. He observed that these creative engineers looked at problems and unlike the rest of us often have two powerful approaches which encourages lots of ideas.
Clever and creative individuals:
- Think about solutions without constraints (initially they don’t judge and therefore squash any emerging ideas as impracticable or wacky)
- Think about the problem in the context of time and space
How can we all achieve this same level of creative thinking? The TRIZ tool for helping us think without constraints is the Ideal Solution or Ideal Final Result. The TRIZ tool which helps us understand and solve problems much more effectively is called Thinking in Time and Space.
Ideal Outcome / System
This is to help us vision the perfect end result - no constraints – no “we can’t have this because….” Think like Leonardo da Vinci who said “Think of the end before the beginning”. Focusing on what we want rather than what we currently have. The underlying philosophy of TRIZ is to deliver more for less, finding solutions to problems for a minimum of cost and harm. The concept of an Ideal frees thinking away from why something can’t be done, to what might be possible and how to achieve it.
Thinking in Time and Space
Seeing the whole picture is essential for good problem solving. TRIZ offers simple and quick tools to map the context and environment. Sort complex information to understand the relevant areas, and understand where and when problems occur.
- Context of Problems and Systems in Time and Space
- Predicting the Future of your Industry and Company
- Long term vs. Short term
- Safety - Causes and Prevention of Hazards
Benefits in Time and Space
This means thinking about all stages – designing everything in the system for optimum use. Listing all functionality and different requirements at different times and places. This step ensures avoiding design for the less significant stages such as easy installation or maintenance or some lesser function.
Defining What We Want
- Ideality – all the Benefits, Costs and Harms
- Ideal Outcome / System
- Understanding Requirements - Benefits
- Selecting the Right Features to Deliver the Right Benefits
- Systems Available to Deliver Benefits & Constraints
- Identifying all Stakeholders and Prioritising their Benefits
- Stakeholder Perception of our Delivery of Benefits
What do we want?
The TRIZ technique of the Ideal Solution helps us break psychological inertia and define what we really want. Clearly understand and define not only what we want, but also what our suppliers and customers want, and where we all are heading over time. This will then help us understand and map the problems that can arise and how they relate to our company, our market, our customers and suppliers in both the long term and the short term. Examine the trends over time for all these elements.
Understanding and Delivering all Stakeholder Requirements
Look at the problem from everyone else’s point of view (whoever is relevant: customer, manufacturing engineer, designer, shareholder etc.). Really understand the conflicts between all stakeholders. Resolving conflicts / contradictions is one of the great powers of TRIZ. Altshuller said “Every great invention is the result of resolving one or more contradictions”. We want to meet the ultimate challenge of solving all the contradictions and develop this product with processes that meet all requirements from all points of view. Once everyone’s input is considered we can then look at how to overcome the barriers to reaching better solutions.
Resources
Identification of available resources around any problem is essential for finding good, cost effective, environmentally friendly solutions. Unlike any other problem solving technique the TRIZ definition of a resource is all-encompassing and focuses even on apparently negative or harmful resources.
There is final (optional) exercise in this Workshop which examines all Stakeholder requirements, their priority, and the benefits they receive, and their perception of how well these benefits are delivered.
Functional Analysis for Mapping Systems & Creativity Tools
- Understanding your System and Highlighting Problems
- Defining the Simplest Building Blocks for Engineering Systems
- Problem Identification and Correct Problem Description
- Problem List
- Standard Solutions for Solving Standard Problems
- Simplification or Trimming Rules
- Innovation and Creativity Tools for Breaking Psychological Inertia
Functional Analysis - This is the TRIZ discipline and process for mapping systems with problems by listing all the components and all their interactions. TRIZ Functional Analysis differs from other forms in that it includes all the negative, ineffective and excessive interactions in the system. Sometimes the harmful elements are key to potential solutions.
All interactions are expressed as Subject-Action-Object and it is important to use simple, clear language (no acronyms) in order to structure the problem correctly. Correct use of this tool allows direct access to the world’s knowledge (which is similarly structured) to locate the best solutions.
The Oxford Creativity TRIZ Functional Analysis is rigorous, and leads to solving contradictions and to solving problems using our simple Standard Solutions. TRIZ Functional Analysis is powerful and links with other popular problem solving tool-kits like Value Engineering, Six Sigma and Lean Sigma all of which (like TRIZ) have their roots in the middle of the last century.
Simplification or Trimming
Once the problems have been identified from the Functional Analysis diagram the first step is to simplify the system using the TRIZ Standard Solutions for System Simplification (also known as the Trimming Rules). Often this step will eliminate problems and reduce the cost and increases system ideality.
Solution map
After simplifying we select one of the remaining problems to solve and identify where we can solve it (in time and space). All the different solutions can be expressed completely and simply in a solution map.
Innovation and Creativity Tools for breaking Psychological Inertia
These TRIZ methods complement most company problem solving toolkits. They include Size-Time-Cost, Smart Little People and Thinking in Time and Space. They are simple to use in directed brainstorming and effective in producing creative breakthroughs.
Advanced TRIZ Day Four
The Whole TRIZ Process
- Mapping your System and Identifying Problems
- Finding Solutions to your Chosen Problems
- Choosing the Best Solutions with TRIZ Tools
- Solving Contradictions - the 40 Principles
- Standard Solutions
- Using the World’s Knowledge
- Accessing Relevant Knowledge – Using the World’s Patent Database
- Applications to Knowledge Management
- Using the World’s Patent database
Oxford Creativity Standard Solutions
This is a simple but comprehensive list of all recorded solutions in the patent data base. In five sections it shows all the general solutions of :-
- How to do something
- Dealing with harm (prevent, transform, block)
- How to improve something (or an action) we already have
- Detecting or measuring something
- Simplifying and making cheaper
Oxford Creativity’s Standard Solutions are a simpler but equally powerful alternative to the traditional TRIZ tools of Altshuller’s Substance-Field Analysis (also known as Su-Fields / S-Fields) and the 76 Standard Solutions. Altshuller’s Substance-Field Analysis offers innovative solutions to inventive problems, but many people found the method tedious, hard to understand and difficult to remember when solving problems.
Standard Solutions are very simple and general lists of all the ways to solve problems recorded by science and technology, particularly in patents. We use the Standard Solutions once we have identified the problem type – such as if we have something harmful. We can then step through all the ways to stop harm...
- Prevent that harm happening at all
- Transforming it so it is no longer harmful (perhaps even useful)
- Block, or prevent the harm so it no longer causes a problem.
Where more detailed technical knowledge is required we show you how to use the patent database to find powerful solutions.
How to access and use the world’s patent databases
This free resource is available to everyone. This is a simple guide to understanding how to match what’s out there with what you are looking for and find relevant knowledge quickly and efficiently.
If you would like to book a place on a public workshop or are interested in running this workshop in-house, please contact
Lilly Haines-Gadd or complete our
booking form.
