Innovating To Win

Keep Innovation Simple Stupid

I’ve been checking back through all the great innovation blogs I like to follow, and I found a nice post on InnovationManagement.se by Chuck Frey titled “The Surprising Connection Between Simplification and Innovation.”  It seems rather serendipitous to stumble across this article reviewing Matthew E. May’s book The Laws of Subtraction because just last night a colleague approached me about a new interface in a product update he had just received.  He told me how very much he liked the new interface.

What my friend didn’t know was the debate that had gone on behind the scenes during the design of this interface.  The designer had put together a very visually compelling, but very different design for the new interface.  The design included many components and provided for a rich interaction model.  My concern was that users don’t always value richness in interaction; they do like directness and ease of function.  So, I asked for an alternative design that drew upon familiar data visualization paradigms to provide a simplified interaction model and that the two designs be tested with actual users.

In the end, the simpler design was selected based on user preference.  This was no surprise.  The value of simplicity in design has long been recognized.  The very essence of this notion is captured in the discipline of value engineering through value equations and codified in various systematic innovation methods such as TRIZ.

Every journey of innovation should include several stops along the way to ask if the current solution can be simplified.  This question alone has the power to drive high value innovations.

TRIZCON 2009 – Day 1

I spent the day at TRIZCON yesterday.  TRIZCON is the annual conference hosted by the Altschulller Institute for TRIZ Studies (AI) which draws an international audience of participants.

After some opening comment by Mansour Ashtiani, the current President of AI, Herbert Roberts of GE Energy gave a presention titled “TRIZ at GE: Edison, Altschuller, and Immagination at Work.”  In his talk, Herbert explained the role innovation plays in GE, and how systematic innovation was finding a home within the organization.  Herbert discussed both the benefits of the structured innovation technique as well as the challenges to organizational adoption at GE.

After Herbert’s presentation, there was a surprise presention by Jeff Jensen of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR).  Jeff’s discussed in detail the evolution of PWR’s innovation and business development system.  He described PWR’s view of innovation as being something that needed to produce a tangible result in the form of revenue to be consider a successful innovation.  It was a refreshingly candid presentation on how a major corporation was coping with the challenges of transforming itself while growing its revenue generation capabilities.

There was also a panel discussion on “The Future of TRIZ”.  The panel was loaded with some heavy weight experts from the international TRIZ community including: Ellen Domb, Isak Buhkman, Alla Zusman, Noel Leon, Zinovy Royzen, Sergei Ikovenko, Prof. Chechurin from St. Petersburg, and me.  Moderated by Mansour Ashtiani, the panel consider several key questions.

• What is the state of TRIZ adoption?
• What are the successes and drivers of TRIZ?
• What are the barriers to TRIZ adoption?
• What role does software play in TRIZ adoption?
• What should the Altschuller Institute be doing to drive greater TRIZ adoption?

While I don’t have notes on all that was said, here are a couple of the key points I raised.

In assessing the state of TRIZ adoption, I took a more somber view than some of the panelists.  I suggested that TRIZ adoption should be rated as poor.  That was based on the fact that current practice of TRIZ is estimate as only reaching 1% of the global engineering population.

On the issue of barriers to adoption, I took the position that today’s climate represents a terrific opportunity for TRIZ as companies are pressured to drive new business opportunities through innovation.  However, we are at a crossroads, and there are other methods that people consider as surrogates for structured innovation. There was a very lively discussion about the strategies to change this.  I proposed that the TRIZ community need to look introspectively and apply TRIZ principles (such as segmentation and coordination) to align TRIZ teaching and practice more directly with the job that users go to TRIZ for.  In essence, we need to treat TRIZ as a disruptive technology in the Christensen model and find the pocket of opportunity from which it can supplant incumbent non-structured models of practice.

Ellen Domb suggest that the TRIZ community needed to get a little humble and find better ways to integrate and align itself with other communities of practice.  I have always liked the way Ellen thinks, and she was in great form on the panel.

After the panel, there some very good papers presented. I didn’t get to all of them, as there were loads of side meeting that I got pulled into.  (I don’t get to west coast as often as I like or should, so when I do my dance card fills up.)  But here are a few of the ones that I did catch.

Noel Leon-Rovira from the Monterey Institute of Technology always seems to come up with great case studies.  He did it again with an interesting paper on the design of a hybrid vehicle that uses solar-thermal technology.

Toru Nakagawa gave a report on his work with USIT in Japan.  Nakagawa-san is one of the most influential TRIZ advocates in Japan.

Jean-Marc LeLann talked about the use of TRIZ inventive principles to resolve problems in systems that contain multiple contradictions.

My friend, Jim Belfiore, wrapped up the afternoon with a provocative paper on a non-tradition application of TRIZ—driving basic research using TRIZ to identify key conceptual questions to be analyzed.

The quality of the presentations was high.  The evening culminated in a convivial dinner.  Here are a couple pictures from the dinner.

L-R: Bao Bui, Jim Belfiore, Isak Buhkman, Jim Todhunter, Ellen Domb

L-R: Mansour Ashtiani, Jim Todhunter, Noel Leon-Rovira

All in all, it was a good day with lots of discussion and thinking about problem solving and innovation, and networking with some of the best minds in the TRIZ community.

Field Notes – November 2008

It has been a very busy month.  The economic climate is heating up activity in the innovation space.  I am heads down preparing a new development plan responding to the feedback from clients who attended an Advisory Council meeting, and working with others who are accelerating their visions for innovation.

Have you noticed that you never have to look long or far to find examples of professionals getting stuck in their mental models when faced with challenging problems?  I am renovating a New England cape style house currently.  Part of the renovation incorporates an expansion of the kitchen and dining rooms that required pulling the back of the house a few feet. 

In order to keep the new space open, a rather large beam was required to both span the long space and bear the load of the upper floor where the previously load-bearing wall had been removed.  The architect produced a plan that called for a drop beam that would be visible within the new space.  The beam would have been very unattractive.  When I asked the architect if the beam could be concealed, he said it couldn’t be done without resorting to a very costly steel beam installation.

Well needless to say, whenever someone tells me “It can’t be done,” that’s when the fun begins.  I asked my architect to explain what he viewed as the problem, and once the parameters of the situation were understood, I explained to him how to resolve the problem and the method of installation that would be required.  (For those of you who like to think about this stuff, I applied the TRIZ Inventive principles 6 - multifunctionality, 11 – pre-compensation, and 27 – cheap disposables to solve the problem.)  After a few moments of thought, he agreed that the proposed solution would work.  As a result I now have a beautifully open space in my new country kitchen area.

The solution was actually very simple and elegant.  But the architect never considered it because it did not fit into his patterns of thinking about such problems.  He simply saw two objects that could not occupy the same space.  It never occurred to him to ask, “Do I really need both of these components?”

This is why we all need occasional help in considering problems.  We need to be able to break free of our preconceived models of thinking and consider things with that fresh eye.  We also need to be able to leverage experience beyond our own.  These concepts are at the core of systematic innovation methodology and a prerequisite for sustainable innovation.

TRIZ and Innovation – What You Said

Having just recently returned from the Fourth TRIZ Symposium in Japan, I find the result of our latest innovation poll very interesting.  Over 40% of us rate TRIZ as very effective and highly important.  Yet, almost one out of four of us have never even heard of TRIZ.  So, what is TRIZ, and how is it that so many haven’t heard of this innovation method that so many believe is so important?

TRIZ (pronounced treez) is a problem solving methodology.  The name, TRIZ, is an acronym from the original Russian name roughly meaning the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving.  Developed by Genrich Altshuller, TRIZ provides a framework for exploring the nature of a problem and finding an inventive solution.  By studying patent literature as a model of how inventors looked at problems, Altshuller identified a number of tools that can be applied by the innovation practitioner.

Over the years, I have seen many stunning cases of great innovative solutions that have been found through the application of TRIZ.  Practitioners who have experienced this success often credit the richness of the TRIZ tool set and its built in out of the box thinking models.  With mysterious names such as nine screens, ARIZ, ideality, inventive principles just to name a few, the skilled TRIZ practitioner has many ways to reshape a problem into new paradigms of expression that opens doors to new paths of solution creation.  TRIZ also draws heavily of the concept that most inventive solutions are already known, you only need identify them.  As a result, the methodology can be greatly complemented through technology.  (This was the topic of my talk at the TRIZ Symposium.)

So if TRIZ is such a useful tool for innovators, why are so many unaware of it?  Sadly while many innovation workers view themselves as change agents, most people don’t actually want to change.  This paradox prevents many from exploring TRIZ.  TRIZ demands that the practitioner think differently; it demands that you follow new paths to find the truly creative idea that will provide the inventive, differentiated solution you seek.  This can be an uncomfortable road to follow for many.

However, as our survey indicates, many of us have travelled the TRIZ road with strong results.  It is estimate that roughly 1% of the world’s engineers have been exposed to TRIZ.  If you are among those who haven’t heard of it, perhaps you should look into it; if you are among those who find it occasionally useful, perhaps you should ask what others are doing to achieve their broader success.

A Day at the Fourth TRIZ Symposium in Japan

I spent Wednesday at the Fourth TRIZ Symposium in Japan.  This annual event has grown rapidly to become one of the largest events of its kind.  Of course, the best part of an event like this is the opportunity to get together with so many top tier innovation practitioners.  I always enjoy catching up with old friends and making new ones.

The morning keynote presentation was delivered by Amir Roggel of Intel.  The presentation, “TRIZ Development at Intel Corporation”, provided a fascinating look at how Intel applied one repeatable innovation methodology.  Amir described TRIZ as the key to systematic innovation to drive Intel’s innovation future, and finished his presentation telling attendees, “Intel uses TRIZ effectively; so can you.”

There a number of interesting presentations during the day.  I attended three of them.

Paul Devaraj of Intel talked about the “Test Pogo Pins Reuse Program” that he had worked on.  Paul did a great job of explaining how TRIZ tools helped him solve issues with critical test equipment.

Following Paul’s talk, Professor Toru Nakagawa of Osaka Gakuin University delivered a presentation titled “Extension of USIT in Japan – A New Paradigm for Creative Problem Solving.”  In this session, Toru described the history of USIT a simplified system based on TRIZ and of USITs deployment in Japan.

The afternoon continued with a session titled “A Comparison of the Problem Solving and Creativity Potential Shown in Engineers using TRIZ or Lean/Six Sigma.”  Presented by Paul Filmore from the University of Plymouth, UK, the talked discussed the findings of some comparative studies conducted by Filmore regarding the level of innovation tools offered to practitioners of different methodologies.  Of course given the much publicized problems in deploying 6-sigma at 3M, it probably comes as no surprise that 6-Sigma scored the lowest level of support for creativity.

Finally, my turn to present came at the end of the day.  My paper, “Advances In The Application of Computational Linguistics for TRIZ Practice,” was well received.  Amir Roggel chimed in during the Q&A to confirm the value of applied semantic technology by relating his own use case.

Unfortunately, I could only stay for one day of the Symposium; from what I saw, it is a high quality event.

Kyoto Musings

I am taking the bullet train this morning from Tokyo to Kyoto to go speak at the 2008 Japanese TRIZ Symposium.  While in Japan, I have also had the chance to meet with several members of the Japanese innovation community.  It is interesting to note the differences and similarities in attitude and approach to innovation that can be observed as one touches different geographic regions.
 
Some things are very consistent.  Japan is feeling an economic slowdown after five years of growth.  This has companies thinking about many of the same issues as their Western counterparts.  Companies globally are coming to the realization that innovation is at the core of their competitive sustainability.  But whereas innovation has been only the domain of R&D in looking for new technology and products, some Japanese companies are rethinking their innovation agenda.  The possibility to push innovation skills to production engineers as a way to spur a new wave of efficiency gains is gaining attraction to these organizations.

This is an interesting trend, but these companies should be expanding their vision.  Innovation touches all aspects of what a company does in delivering value to the most important customers in the value chain.  While it is easy to consider the discrete innovation actions as independent event during the product lifecycle, such a viewpoint is self limiting.  Product creation, delivery, and service are interconnected elements of a complex corporate ecosystem of value creation.  As such, companies should consider how to encourage and leverage the connectedness of these activities.

Another trend that I have seen recently in Europe and the US which has been validated in my discussions with Japanese companies is a shift in thinking about knowledge management and its role in innovation.  There is a growing awareness of the fundamental importance of connecting knowledge workers with information.  But, traditional models of knowledge management are viewed as being failed systems.  While thinking in this area is still lagging globally, more and more companies are beginning to understand that a new metaphor of design intent and role based knowledge enablement is needed to break the barriers between knowledge workers and the information they need to formulate new concepts of innovation.

Innovation Stigma

Over on Innovation in Practice, Drew Boyd comments on the stigma associated with innovation that deters executive from investing.  Drew goes on to say that the innovation industry is somewhat to blame for this because it has conspired to keep innovation shrouded in a cloak of mystery.

To some extent, this is true.  I remember sitting in the audience a few years back at TRIZCON when, during a panel discussion on how to expand the reach of TRIZ, the distinguished Toru Nakagawa suggested that the teaching of TRIZ needed to be simplified to lower the barrier of entry for practitioners.  There was nothing shocking about the suggestion, but what happened next was stunning.  Larry Smith, formerly President of the Altschuller Institute, scolded Toru and asserted that since it had been difficult for him to learn TRIZ, it should be difficult for others as well.

But the real source of executive uncertainty when it comes to innovation is simply that most companies are still stuck in the hopeless cycle of accidental innovation.  As a result, they see very poor, often negative, returns on the investments in innovation.  This is further exacerbated by the fact that there are innovation companies out there peddling ideation snake oil.  So, company’s bad experiences with these innovation charlatans further taint their view on the value of innovation.

Yet, we see so many examples of innovation driving business growth and success.  I have been enjoying reading A. G. Lafley’s account of how P&G made innovation central to their “consumer is boss” ethos.  This focus on innovation was instrumental to turning around P&G as Lafley took them from being a tired, lackluster company to being the world beater that they are now.

The truth is that disciplined, sustainable innovation practice really works.  It drives corporate value and is one the most important core competencies that a company can develop.  Innovation practice is not about fuzzy games to tease new thoughts out of people though.  It is about learning the specific techniques of framing your challenges in the right way and then applying proven problem solving methods to unwind the challenges.

Don’t be fooled by the think that you can fuel you innovation program with ideation snake oil.  Do invest in building a strong and integrated sustainable innovation program.  In the end, you will find it is easier than you think, and the rewards are far greater that you imagine.

Innovation and The Information Fund

I am writing a paper to be submitted to the upcoming Japanese TRIZ Symposium.  The topic is one that I find very interesting.  In short, how do technical advances in computational linguistics change the landscape of innovation practice?

This weekend I sent a draft of an extended abstract to my colleague in Japan to get some feedback on the topic.  I was pleased that he liked the topic and the outline for the paper.  He also asked for some clarification on two phrases used in the abstract: “information fund” and “accrued global knowledge”.  Of course, language differences being what they are, it was no surprise that some questions would arise, but these questions got me to wonder about how many people don’t know about the concept of the Information Fund.

Sometimes referred to as the TRIZ Information Fund, this is a very important concept for all designers, engineers, scientists, and innovators.  The idea is really very simple.

In the mid 1940s, an engineer named Genrikh Altshuller had an idea that inventiveness and creativity could be learned.  He set out to look for the foundations of creative problem solving by studying the legacy of scientific and engineering invention documented in Russian patents.  Through this study, he developed a theory of how problems can be systematically approached and solved inventively.  This theory is what is called TRIZ.  (Pronounced treez, it is an acronym for the Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch which is roughly translated as the theory of inventive problem solving.)

However, as Altshuller worked on his theory, he recognized that having a disciplined approach to innovation was not sufficient to solving problems, nor was having tools such as the inventive principles.  He understood that problem solvers needed knowledge of facts -- facts like Bernoulli’s principle or that Sun move from east to west.  It is the notion that there exists a body of global knowledge, that scientific and engineering knowledge that is currently known, which is referred to as the information fund.

Of course, Altshuller wasn’t the first person to recognize the importance of learning from those who have gone before us.  In a 1676 letter to Robert Hooke, it was Sir Isaac Newton who wrote, “If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”  This is the reality of every great innovation.

This is why the Information Fund is so important.  In the past, the notion of tapping into accrued global knowledge was impractical.  Individuals had to rely on their personal resources to collect information that they could use.   Time and technology have changed all that.  We live in the information age, and the notion of amassing such a vast collection of leveragable knowledge is not only conceivable, it is a practical reality.

When considering how to construct the architecture your organization’s innovation infrastructure, particular attention should be given to how you have equipped knowledge workers to leverage the information fund.  If you are not looking at this seriously, you will be operating at a severe disadvantage compared to leading organizations that are already putting this knowledge into action.

TRIZ Enabled Mergers and Acquisitions

For those of us who did not make it to TRIZCON2008, a neat paper by Jim Belfiore has been published on the TRIZ Journal site.  This paper is a good read and presents a novel take on applying some TRIZ concepts to the task of analyzing companies for possible M&A interest.  Take a look and share your thoughts on this interesting piece.

Innovation And The Light Bulb

Lots of folks complain that the light bulb is a tired and hackneyed symbol for innovation.  So, I found it somewhat amusing to see the lowly light bulb making a bit of innovation news.  Over on BizTechTalk, “How Many People Does It Take to Make a New Light Bulb?” points out one man’s efforts to find eco-friendly lighting solutions.

If you have seen BizTechTalk before, check it out.  I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Dan Keldsen.  He is a sharp fellow, and he posts some nice interview podcasts on his blog.

So, you are undoubtedly asking yourself what I found amusing about the eco-friendly light bulb.  Well, the story reminded me of a TRIZ joke.

Question: How many TRIZ Masters does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: None. The Ideal Final Result is that the light bulb changes itself.