Yuri Salamatov
TRIZ: THE RIGHT SOLUTION AT THE RIGHT TIME: A Guide to Innovative Problem Solving
Foreword
The way of progress lies through generation of new ideas. Throughout the history they saved us more than once. New ideas are ‘produced’ by inventors. In the broad sense, inventors are people who bring something new to every area of social life. If they have rules and methods to generate new, fresh ideas, these rules and methods should be made familiar to everyone. How does the ‘invention industry’ work? How effective is it? Quite surprisingly, this is the only industry in our well-organized world that still practices amateurish and hardly controllable ‘mode of production’. The society is still at the mercy of the elements that govern the inventive mind. A novel idea appears only when somebody decides to find it. But the real problem with inventions is even worse: despite an ardent desire to invent, one may spend months, years, or a whole life falling short of solving the chosen problem. Getting into difficult situations, heroes of books and movies often talk to themselves in the following manner: “What if I do it this way? No, this does not work, let’s try to do it differently.... What if I start from the other side? No, this is all wrong again”, and so on. In this way, the search of variants continues, until the right solution flashes into the hero’s mind. But in reality a solution may take dozens, hundreds or thousands of alternatives. Life may be too short to give the right answer. Nowadays, the era of random collecting of ideas is coming to an end. It is high time we started using a different inventive technology.
SUCH TECHNOLOGY REALLY EXISTS. YOU ARE INVITED TO EXPLORE THIS NEW, PARADOXICAL SCIENCE BORN IN OUR DAYS.
The book aims to give a systematic overview of the main principles of TRIZ (the Russian acronym for the “Theory of Inventive Problem Solving”). The basic facts, ideas and recommendations of TRIZ are based on extensive analysis of patents and practical work. Through many years of teaching TRIZ, it has served as an effective tool in achieving a rapid increase in the creative potential of specialists. This goal turned out to be quite realistic, despite the skeptical claims of those who still believe in the ‘flash of understanding’. Moreover, the TRIZ target audience consists not only of technical workers (engineers, researchers and students) but also of those who specialize in arts and humanities.
CONTRARY TO WHAT WE USUALLY HEAR, IT TURNED OUT THAT IN-BORN ABILITIES DO NOT MATTER MUCH. RATHER, THEY DO NOT MATTER AT ALL. ANYONE WITH A STRONG DESIRE TO LEARN CAN BECOME AN INVENTOR AND LEARN TO THINK CREATIVELY.
In our understanding, creative thinking is a powerful, well-managed thinking that has a set of special techniques, rules and programs at its disposal. Creative thinking has nothing to do with spontaneous, unpredictable, disordered judgments. Neither does it rely on intuition, ‘insight’ and the popular fallacy about ‘geniuses’ (‘the chosen ones’!) and the ‘mob’, a fallacy based on the assumption that people have unequal abilities for making inventions. Instead, this book gives you a fully ‘democratic’ chance to use your creativity.
HOW CAN YOU BENEFIT FROM THIS BOOK?
There can be different levels of studying the material presented in the book. In the simplest case, you might treat it as a collection of interesting facts, examples and techniques and later put them to personal use. Admittedly, this is not the best kind of reading: our database of examples will be exhausted very soon but you will not acquire the desired skill that helps in finding and solving problems. A more promising way is to study carefully the main ideas of this creative theory, master the problem solving method and subsequently learn how to pose creative problems.
AND IN THE END YOU WILL BECOME A POWERFUL CREATIVE PERSONALITY
Hence is the structure of the book: it gives a brief and comprehensive revision of TRIZ, supplemented by numerous examples and problems. The brevity of style is justified by the fact that even the basic scope of TRIZ theory cannot be fully described within one book. That is why it is essential that the reader is a keen and active participant in the learning process. In addition, it is advisable to extend your knowledge by reading other literature and borrowing information from other resources on inventions.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
Above all, the book aims at people who have decided to acquire profound knowledge about creative inventions. For them it will serve as a valuable and informative point of reference. The first chapter demands a minimal effort from the reader. However, each new chapter brings more and more information; which to some people may seem an information overload. Such is the purposeful strategy of the author: effective learning can only be acquired through difficult tasks. Carefree problems are good as a warming-up but their effect is minimal for boosting your creative imagination. In-depth analysis should accompany your reading in each section of the book and in each problem. Ideally, the reader should solve one third of the problems; for about the same number of problems there is a general clue to solution. After your first reading, you may not be able to see all of them solved. But the most important result at this stage is your honest endeavor to come to a solution employing the full potential of your imagination and subsequently analyzing the possible deviations from the target answer descriptions. Indeed, an inventive problem may have more than one solution. In the end, your most valuable gain will be the skill to evaluate and give priority to solutions. Upon the second reading, problems will not be in the focus of attention. Here you are advised to write down step-by-step solutions, your notes and thoughts about certain elements of theory and their application. This is the most effective way to master this creative methodology. In addition to his own experience, the author has used research materials of Genrich Altshuller: inventor, engineer, science fiction writer and the Father of TRIZ theory who, throughout many years, published a series of books in the Soviet Union and abroad. Every up-and-coming science calls for enthusiasts. That is why the author invites you to discuss various scientific, methodological and organizational issues that will stimulate the development of TRIZ. Any notes and suggestions concerning new ways of TRIZ application are welcome.
About the author:
Yuri Petrovich Salamatov, Ph.D., author of over 50 inventions and many publications, including books on TRIZ, to which the author has effectively contributed for over 20 years. In 1980 he joined the Public Laboratory of the Theory of Invention, headed by Genrich Altshuller. In 1982-1991 he trained engineers and scientists at Krasnoyarsk University of Creative Research and Development under the auspices of the local Research and Development Council. In 1989 Salamatov became the director of Krasnoyarsk branch of Invention Machine Laboratories. In 1998 he established and became the director of the Institute of Innovative Design.
