I like TRIZ, though I admit it intimidates me, despite Jack Hipple's best training efforts! Yet as much as I like TRIZ, here's a day I never thought I'd see -- Business Week featuring an article on this formerly obscure Russian idea-generation technique. Yet here it is: The World According to TRIZ --
" With 'innovation' such a hot buzzword in business circles these days, companies are scrambling to find the magic formula for creating inventive products and services. One method that's gaining converts -- and breeding skeptics -- is a 60-year-old theory known as TRIZ."
And just prior to that my blogger friend
Olivier Blanchard sent me a
link to a post on TRIZ in a blog called
Swamp Fox that is associated with the
Southeastern Innovation Corridor. According to the post, three-day certification courses in Inventive Problem Solving, which is Ideation International's flavor ofTRIZ, are being offered to entrepreneurs by the University of South Carolina.
The BusinessWeek article doesn't get into much detail, but deftly points out the pros and cons. Pros: it's structured innovation: "This could be a parallel to Six Sigma," the article quotes Insourcing Innovation co-author David Silverstein. Yet the other quotes in the article that support this muddy up the idea of a structure for coming up with ideas -- which is what TRIZ is -- with a structure for developing innovation. Example: "When asked if 'structured innovation" à la TRIZ is a contradiction in terms, Stowell [Davin Stowell, founder and chief executive of New York-based Smart Design, a leading product-design firm] defends the general idea. 'Innovation absolutely needs to be structured to finish a project. Or else you wander all over the place.' "
On the opposite side: "some product-design firms approach TRIZ with caution. One of them is Design Continuum. 'It seems to me that TRIZ is trying to create an equation for innovation,' says Harry West, the company's vice-president of strategy & innovation. 'I think it's a great aspiration. But if there's an equation for innovation out there, your competitor can do the same -- which means the competitive challenge can easily be lost.' "
As usual in these kinds of stories that sum up something complicated by offering quotes from opposing views, the real truth is somewhere in the middle. TRIZ is a great tool for making connections in a structured way that allows you to leave no stone unturned. It will not come up with ideas for you, but it will help you come up with ideas. It won't help you evaluate them, or design a process for developing them into products, services, etc.
And since you must supply the input -- the basic challenge and the "Ideal Final Result" -- it will ikely be different from anyone else's, which will result in different answers. In fact, if you define the Ideal Final Result to the degree of rigor that I've been told you have to do, it will be extremely idiosyncratic to you and the problelm that you and only you are trying to solve. Thus the objection that TRIZ is an "equation for innovation" is somewhat spurious.
I do like the "last word" quote, again from David Silverstein: " 'Look, TRIZ is not the answer to everything. It's just one approach to innovation.' "
If there's anything that will keep TRIZ from wide aoption, it's that it's fairly complicated and rigorous. But that just means there are people out there like David Silverstein, Ideation International, and Jack Hipple, who'll help you learn it and apply it. If they find TRIZ valuable enough, businesses will pay for the service of being guided through the forest of TRIZ.
Renee Hopkins Callahan started IdeaFlow and serves as chief blog-wrangler. She is 
1. Ellen Domb on June 1, 2006 4:57 PM writes...
Hi, Rene:
Thanks for a very nice interpretation of the Business Week article. For anyone who wants to see lots of TRIZ case studies and tutorials, the TRIZ Journal is free, with 10 years of archives on-line. We had 83,000 readers last month, so we know that people are getting interested.
http://www.triz-journal.com
Ellen Domb
Permalink to Comment2. olivier blanchard on June 1, 2006 8:58 PM writes...
Innovation is mostly about focused and applied imagination. The best processes in the world won't do a company any good if it doesn't put the right people in place to a) foster, b) drive and c) champion innovation.
I'm not sure that innovation can be bottled so easily. Product development, yes... but innovation... I'm not so sure. Case in point: Some of the best ideas my team and I came up with were complete accidents. We worked on a project two years ago which was riddled with serious engineering hurdles. We solved almost all of them by "accidentally" stumbling across a variety of products which had absolutely no relation whatsoever with what we were working on.
That's how most of this product's features were inspired by my dog's favorite chew toy, my car's retractable ceiling handle, the lead designer's son's foldable calculator, my garden spray, my triathlon bike's brake shifters, a guitar pick, baby bottle seal, dental floss, and a wetsuit.
Is there a process there? Yes. Of course there is. But will it work for most people? I doubt it. Some people (or teams of people) will innovate because it is in their nature to do so, with or without methodology or process.
My humble opinion. :)
Permalink to Comment3. Howard Smith on June 1, 2006 11:42 PM writes...
At Computer Sciences Corporation, I am using and developing TRIZ methods that work reliably. We have some novel approaches to the topic which focus on the development of upper-level TRIZ applications that can be used by mortals. I have written some readable papers about those ideas at http://trizmethods.blogspot.com/
Permalink to Comment4. Chris Flanagan on June 2, 2006 9:04 AM writes...
Clay Christensen, who is one of our research advisors, introduced me to TRIZ earlier this year. Ironically, Harry West is also on our advisory board, so I had to chuckle over your entry.
TRIZ is REALLY interesting. The theory being that if you understand the principles necessary to solve problems, TRIZ can help predict, in a broad sense, both where a business or market is going and how to get there. But it is a complicated process (which I admit I gave up on after trying to plow through the book).
So I'm inclined to agree with Olivier below - but more because people naturally travel a path of least resistance - and innovators are no different. Which is why I find 'design thinking' to be more relevant to the innovation process.
Permalink to Comment5. Dr. Rod King on June 6, 2006 2:36 PM writes...
I'm glad that TRIZ is getting more and more exposure. Innovators certainly need more robust tools for their journeys in innovation. One of my gripes with TRIZ is its weak framework for organizing its tools. I see TRIZ as a methodology that adopts a systems approach to problem solving and innovation. Consequently, concepts and tools of TRIZ are applicable to all areas of business. Without a simple and robust roadmap, however, tools of TRIZ appear to be applied in a piecemeal manner to illustrate as well as develop innovative solutions. I've found quite a number of published explanations on the application of TRIZ to be unconvincing! Also, some people are not convinced that they can obtain real results using TRIZ. Using a systems framework for organizing tools of TRIZ, many of these problems can be overcome. Using a systems framework, we can see that concepts, principles, and techniques of TRIZ can be used to explain everyday outcomes as well as develop highly innovative solutions. TRIZ has been concentrating on the "trees." It's about time, TRIZ starts looking at the "forest" and "landscape." As a popular business dictum goes, we should act local but think and see global. Or, should it not be the other way round?
Permalink to Comment6. Jennifer Runyon on June 7, 2006 10:47 AM writes...
I've enjoyed reading your recent posts. Wanted to let you know about our site--Innovate Forum. In fact, we're linking to your Whitepaper post today. We have an interview with Harry West posted right now and our next in line (to go up in a day or two) happens to be an interview with David Silverstein. Each one offers a vastly different approach to innovation as we have seen. Fascinating topic.
Permalink to Comment7. Richard Langevin on July 14, 2006 9:39 AM writes...
Rene,
I appreciate your review of the Business Week article. TRIZ will only grow if there are many more articles written about this important subject. Far too many people do not know that TRIZ exists. With your help we can reduce that number.
Permalink to CommentFor more information about TRIZ, please visit the Altshuller Institute for TRIZ Studies and sign up for our FREE monthly E-Newsletter.
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