Innovation in society
"The outlook is difficult for creativity and innovation today"
You have written about the Theory of Solving Inventive Problems (TRIZ). You can explain what it is.
TRIZ is the Russian acronym for Inventive Problem Solving Theory ("Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch", developed by Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues since 1946 and still in development.
The root cause of any invention or innovation in the Industry is the solution of a technical problem and that is where TRIZ is strong.
Historically it has been taught that trial and error is a useful method of solving problems and situations, although it is inefficient, costly, not focused, subjective, and mainly does not have a guide to the optimal solution. Precisely all of this is what TRIZ offers.
TRIZ is a systematic guide based on Knowledge Management and aimed at solving problems and situations.
TRIZ was originated by the Russian scientist and engineer Genrikh Altshuller in the early 1950s and started with massive studies of patents.
TRIZ reveals the common similarities and patterns between design problems and solutions that have resulted in patents worldwide.
These sixty years of research led to the understanding of the origins of inventive activity and the formulation of the general principles of design.
As of 2008, there are more than 300 TRIZ research institutes, educational centers and teaching centers in the former Soviet Union and about 50 in the US / Asia / Europe.
What are the postulates on which the TRIZ method is based?
The TRIZ postulates are based on the fact that the evolution of technology has a systematic process and the evolution of artificial systems undeniably correlates with the evolution of customer needs and social trends, and this is bi-directional.
In addition, the evolution of all areas of engineering influences the evolution of other areas: Social Sciences, Architecture, Education, Environment, etc.
Another great discovery was to reveal the origins of the inventive step and to relate it to the contradictions.
A contradiction occurs when two mutually exclusive design requirements are placed on the same object or system, for example you want to have a car with more power and then you need a more powerful and surely heavier engine.
TRIZ operates with only 40 inventive principles, since these are continuously repeated according to the statistical data of the study of millions of patents, and in addition TRIZ teaches that the evolution of objects and processes follow certain pre-established guidelines.
TRIZ is heuristic in the sense that it is a guide to alternative solutions, such as when one chooses, touches and smells a melon on its end, to know if it is ripe enough. As is known, TRIZ operates with contradictions and if the basic contradiction is not overcome, the problem persists. For example suppose that you install a more powerful engine in your airplane to have more speed, but since this makes the airplane heavier, you must increase the size of the wings, to be able to take off and stay in the air.
But now it turns out that there is more weight and inertia to overcome, and the objective was not well resolved, because we must find a win-win formula, without having variables that worsen. In the previous example, more speed and power are achieved with an additive or a better fuel, without affecting other variables.
TRIZ also operates with ideality, that is, to move back from the problem and see if it is possible to reach the RFI: the ideal end result, without expensive reprocessing.
Putting together Ideality and Contradictions there is a powerful problem-solving tool, because they include purification (correctly establishing the problem), with the clarification of contradictions (detecting the roots of the problem) and finally with the imagination of the best solution (discovering the ideality).
What steps must a company follow to implement the TRIZ method?
In general, you start with a three-day training at the basic level that takes six months to consolidate, and then with more elaborate examples you reach the higher level with another five days of training.
There is a large bibliography in English and some good guides in Spanish.
In this sense, practice is essential since innovation requires a systematic and wide-ranging study.
Why is TRIZ just now becoming known?
The inventive problem-solving theory Triz was for many years hidden by the KGB in Russia itself.
She was the main person in charge of that Russia put itself to the same level of the USA in the space and arms race.
Only after 1990 with the opening of the USSR did something become known and with the flight of scientists from 1995-2000 their study was accelerated.
In Russia there are about 200 universities and institutes that have already integrated it into their study plans since 1980.
Outside of Russia there are about 80 people in the US, it is said that the same in Europe and the same in China. But the problem is that the specialists are 80% Russian, and not all speak English, and they know the theory but do not know or want to explain it.
There is also no interest in teaching it because the specialists, who are few in the world (an estimated 300 people outside of Russia), prefer the Consultancy that charges 300 dollars per hour.
On the other hand, some universities in England, France, the USA and Japan charge a lot for their study, and only the introduction of 5 days costs 3000 euros and paid only by some companies. In general, companies find it faster and cheaper to hire the consultancy.
What does TRIZ offer to the Industry?
TRIZ helps the Industry in several ways:
- Inventing a new generation of products or satisfying new customer requirements, with the laws of evolution and the table of contradictions Modifying products and services with new materials using Functional Analysis and the Ideal Final Result Solving chronic and terminal problems, which means no have been solved by known methods, innovating industrial processes by minimizing production bottlenecks.
In what way can the TRIZ method increase the creativity of workers?
Companies must investigate whether what is invested in the development of Improvements or Innovations to a Process / Product / Service is acceptable from the Accounting point of view or if it is outside of International Standards.
This is known in companies as ROI (Return on Investment: Return on Investment), that is, if I invest a certain amount of money and I expect a certain benefit for that money, what is the ROI value.
The ROI is the saving of money or the monetary benefits divided by the cost of the investment to achieve these benefits.
TRIZ increases creativity and innovation because it is a systematic method aimed at obtaining results in a minimum investment time, in a way that drastically improves the ROI of the project you are working on.
How can creativity and innovation lead to invention?
Creativity is the generation and development of several alternative ideas to solve a problem. It is studied with simple techniques for generating ideas by analogy or at random. But this is not very efficient.
Innovation is the selection, development and commercialization of a creative idea that solves a problem and that is inextricably linked to the Market.
If the market does not approve of your product or service, it cannot be said to be innovative.
Finally, the Invention occurs when all the technical and physical contradictions of an object, system or process are overcome and the ideal final result is reached. This ideal end result is the one raised by Altshuller in Triz.
Innovation and invention are studied with Triz, the Inventive Problem Solving Theory, which allows you to optimize products based on successful patents, resolve technical or physical contradictions step by step, and allow you to forecast new generations of products and processes.
These three characteristics make it unsurpassed for its predictive nature. Unfortunately, very little is studied these topics of Innovation and Invention.
What differentiates a creative problem from an inventive problem?
The uniqueness of inventive problems over creative problems is that in inventive problems there is always a contradiction, be it physical or administrative or technical.
In creative problems one uses techniques at random, or analogical or antithetical, but without having strictly defined the objective, allowing oneself to be carried away by imagination and intuition, and then hundreds of ideas are collected and the best ones are filtered. They are valid methods, but also highly inefficient.
Instead, TRIZ focuses on the different contradictions and eliminates them without reaching compromise solutions. Hence its use in companies.
Because ultimately a contradiction, be it administrative, technical or physical, is a problem that affects the business, and therefore the company itself, since another company can occupy part of the market if it works without contradictions.
Examples of inventions are the carts that in Sumerian times, 4000 years ago, used completely solid wheels to transport goods. But the Greeks had to make war and so they invented spokes on wheels to make them lighter and added metal rims to make them more durable.
The Egyptians 5000 years ago, to build their pyramids they needed large blocks of rock and to make them easily transportable over long distances, they invented wooden platforms with waxed trunks to slide on the sand.
In the same way, it was the Egyptians who invented reed boats to navigate the Nile, and papyrus sails to use the wind and cheap slave labor to row when the wind was not favorable.
Are there companies that do not stimulate innovation among their workers.Why is this situation due?
It is due to ancient concepts that knowledge is power and as such only authority decides and deliberate efforts are not made to train and train staff.
Currently the largest capital of the company is in the hands and minds of its employees.
Can innovation in a company be statistically measured?
Yes, the way to measure it is with the ROI or the so-called Return on Investment.
An ROI greater than 2 in a reasonable period of one to two years is widely approved for investments of 1 to 6 million dollars, in most companies. In other types of companies it varies but not too much.
An ROI greater than three before two years is excellent, and ROIs less than 1.5 should be studied in more detail if the investment is justified.
How do people achieve high performance in innovation?
Teaching people to know and optimize their brain when developing Innovation and invention.
They should study TRIZ because it assists them as a guide in solving technical problems, which are almost always the ones that delay product innovation.
Habits are dangerous, they generate conformity and lead to routine, therefore, the best habit is to learn to innovate, even if it is successful.
People must know themselves to see the world as a source of opportunity and not as a source of threats.
What to do when faced with a problem or a request for an Innovation?
Solve it through thought, with systematic strategies. What was good at one time is not at another. You have to learn to think and this is not remembering or believing and includes understanding the situation, inventing the solution and acting accordingly.
At least with simple tools such as the Altshuller table, one can begin to move towards what are the inventive principles that will facilitate the resolution of a situation or problem.
In Innovation, which skills or knowledge should be developed?
Skills such as the ability to read, listen, concentrate, have memory, expressiveness, intelligence, or creative strategy can be measured, and techniques help overcome skill gaps.
Meanwhile, knowledge helps you to recognize the contradictions of your problem and is a first step towards solving it. Emotional intelligence is also important.
The best bet is to invest in ourselves, develop the skills, the knowledge and use more than 10% of the brain.
As a conclusion, it is not to use one or the other, but to add the skills and knowledge.
Are there also games available to practice?
GO and chess are innovative games that contribute to the development of both hemispheres of the brain, and in several countries it has already been used to stimulate brain function in patients with paralysis and dysfunctions.
It is also used by engineers, teachers, students, who apply algorithms, group theories and other techniques on the Entrepreneur Dashboard.
It is widely applied in business administration and practiced as military training in the East.
Are creativity and innovation taught correctly in universities?
There are serious problems in university education with the teaching of Creativity, due to:
- The presence of a lot of theory and little practice, The scarce training of the teacher in complementing himself with computers, advertising and the Market, The absence of an environment of art and culture, The lack of covering a need for greater contact with the Market and its Requirements Lack of union between creativity and Innovation, in particular teaching tools to optimize products and services Lack of an introduction to the concepts of Invention and the evolution of systems It is not clearly understood that the rules and the study of Creativity, Innovation and Invention are totally different.
But do not worry, if the outlook is difficult for creativity, it is even worse for Innovation and tremendous with Invention.
What characteristics should an innovation teacher have?
My particular opinion is that you should:
- Have mastery of their subject and what the market demands Must communicate easily and establish cordial relationships with the class and the ability to organize group participation, as well as allow mutual interaction Be able to respond personally to each student.Transmit enthusiasm that infects and arouses interest and stimulates the reaction of the participants.
Why use TRIZ?
At heart, most inventive problems are problems of lack of information. In other words, most of the contradictions are because we don't know something.
Research helps us find the missing part and jump over the contradiction to the invention, but they are much more expensive than solving the problem with pencil and paper.
In fact, in most cases, the contradictions are not resolved or investigated in the Research and Development Centers of the companies, but simply eliminated with TRIZ quickly and cheaply.
What contribution does TRIZ make to the evolution of systems?
The evolution of systems follows known laws according to TRIZ. All the systems that surround us, be they technical, natural, social, economic and others, are developed according to the dialectical laws of TRIZ.
Its mechanisms are solved by identifying and eliminating contradictions or by taking the system towards Ideality, in its simplest forms.
For technical systems there are applicable tools such as resolution algorithms. Historically the Olympics were a detour from wars. They then evolved to a sports ideology and then to a political ideology in 1933, to return to a health ideology today.
A social element such as clocks should have eliminated the contradiction of accuracy in the first place, moving from the sundial, to the water clock, to the sand clock, to the fire clock, to the pendulum clock and to the portable pendulum clock.
The latter was necessary not only for comfort but also for European sailors and their chronometry of time until the clock came to springs
But the clocks and their accuracy went to the contradiction of cost and manufacturing difficulties, thus to compensate for atmospheric changes, shocks and temperature, a vacuum was made inside the mechanism.
All this indicates the trend towards the ideal Final Result RFI, that is, to maximize the functions with the minimum cost and the best use of Resources possible.
So they have strived for miniaturization, to be waterproof, to combine with calculators, radios, earrings, bracelets, music, telephones, etc.
Just as Mendeleev's periodic table incorporates the regularities of the nucleus and electrons of the existing chemical elements and yet to be discovered, the contradictions and the RFI fixes the regularities in the development of clocks in the use of electromagnetic fields or sunlight or cures.
And the transition to super systems (that is, to resources external to the system itself) leads to having the time on TV, radio, telephones, cars, computers, official time service, etc.
The use of the clock passed to the individual form from community use, thus, for example, the official clock of the city of Rouen worked from 1380 to 1572 and its breakage caused serious disorders to the population.
The transition from being a natural system to an artificial system is also observable.
The time was also adjusted to the seasons of the year. In ancient Egypt, day and night had the same number of hours, but then the day was accommodated with dawn and dusk at different times of the year. In the winter the night was longer and there were more hours of prayers required by the priests.
Even today, some countries modify the schedule according to the times of the year to save electricity, when the real problem is to generate more energy or use more efficient equipment.
