">My post on the BusinessWeek TRIZ article has had a fair amount of comment, including one I will quote here, as it came to me in an email from TRIZ consultant Jack Hipple, with whom I have had a smattering of TRIZ training. Says Jack:

"I loved this quote:

'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.' '

That IS the whole point of TRIZ and this guy should be appropriately afraid. The reason we don't have to use trial and error to solve quadratic equations anymore is that algebra was discovered as a mathematical science A lot of fast guessers were put out of business. There is much less mystery than this guy thinks, and when more of the world discovers they don't need a magician (as opposed to a logical process that anyone can learn--ie science and not psychlogy) he will have a rude awakening as others in the engineering world have discovered. Egos are a terrible thing to waste...."

As for me, I'd like to think that there's a middle ground -- there's a little more mystery to innovation than the TRIZ enthusiasts say, and there's a lot more process to innovation than some of the professional creatives think.

You can read the rest of the comments at the end of the original post.