TRIZ Beyond Technology: 
The Theory and Practice of Applying TRIZ
to Non-Technical Areas^[1]

Boris Zlotin, Alla Zusman, Len Kaplan, Svetlana Visnepolschi, 
Vladimir Proseanic and Sergey Malkin

Ideation International Inc.
February, 2000
Detroit, Michigan

During the 1970s and 1980s, attempts to apply TRIZ to management and administration problems were entertained on occasion by several TRIZ specialists, primarily for the purpose of enhancing various manufacturing processes. Efforts in this area were limited, however, because in the communist Soviet Union, the privilege of making business decisions belonged to people who had no interest in TRIZ. Moreover, there was no chance whatsoever of launching a private business. The situation changed dramatically with the onset of the Russian "acceleration of technical progress" (the so-called pre-perestroika) and then perestroika; together these programs served to stimulate the use of TRIZ in technological areas. But within a few years the deteriorating economic situation had driven most industries into a deep crisis, virtually eliminating any chance of making a living by solving technical problems. Yet at the same time these conditions gave rise to new opportunities for quickly accumulating successful experiences in working with new commercial (mostly trade) organizations in the areas of business, management, politics, advertising, etc.

When we established Ideation International in 1992, we knew that the highest return on our investment (in terms of time and money) would be achieved by applying TRIZ to business and management rather than technology. But we restricted ourselves to technology because the notion that Russians could teach Americans anything about business sounded absurd. We therefore decided to introduce TRIZ in its "traditional" arena first to prove that a science capable of solving technical problems in a structured, systematic way did in fact exist. Then, when the time was right and TRIZ had established a solid reputation, we would move into the areas of management, business, education, etc.

It is well known that Genrich Altshuller began developing TRIZ as a pure engineering science, based on the statistical research of patents and other sources of technical information. The goal of his research was to reveal the "patterns of innovation" so that they could be exploited for the purpose of advancing technological systems. Ultimately, Altshuller established a procedure for developing a methodology for creative problem solving, as follows:

• Accumulate a data bank of numerous creative solutions (inventions, for the technological arena)

• Identify different "levels" of creative solutions, then select the high-level solutions from the data bank

• Reveal typical patterns by which creative solutions of different levels are obtained (innovation principles, patterns of evolution, etc.)^[2]

• Develop algorithms for obtaining these solutions

Since then, the following additional steps have been formulated:

In the area of problem solving:

• Reveal the typical problems found in the targeted area

• Collect powerful solutions and create a corresponding data bank

• Perform multiple test cycles of the obtained algorithms on numerous educational problems (case studies). Tests should be performed first by the author, then by his/her colleagues, and finally by TRIZ students at seminars and workshops

• Introduce appropriate corrections as a result of testing

In the area of "patterns of evolution":

• Clearly define the boundaries of validity for each pattern (for example, a pattern might apply to mechanical systems only)

• Coordinate and structure the various patterns into a hierarchical system (pattern/line/principle/sub-principle, etc.)

• Test the applicability of the patterns in other areas of technology; clarify and reformulate as necessary to address the additional areas without lessening their reliability or potency

The above procedure, though not published in this format by Altshuller, was for the most part repeatedly addressed by him in numerous seminars and discussions; these steps are also readily seen in his work. Even more significant, however, is that this approach has been applied numerous times in the technological realm – and with great success.

During the early stages in the development of TRIZ, examples of successful attempts to apply selected TRIZ tools and approaches to non-technical areas started to accumulate. TRIZ educators began, in a systematic manner, to address their students’ attempts to apply knowledge gained from TRIZ to various problems, in particular:

• Problems from subjects they studied in schools and colleges^[3]
• Various "everyday life" problems
• Conflicts in family life and in the working environment
• Problems in art, sports, etc.

By the early 1980s, a substantial number of successful TRIZ applications in non-technical areas had been achieved. Several papers were written describing attempts to find similarities in different areas (for example, demonstrating the parallels between contradictions in technology and in the evolution of science^[4]). However, Altshuller repeatedly warned against such hasty "reassignments," insisting that the same procedure (especially the first four steps) that he had established for the development of TRIZ be followed.

One of the most serious problems was associated with the first step, that is, accumulating creative solutions in the given area. Altshuller was fortunate in starting with technology as it was the only area with a well-documented and comprehensive source of solutions (the patent library). Collecting creative solutions in other areas with sufficient completeness would likely have taken decades given the human and financial resources available at the time.

Between 1982 and 1984 Boris Zlotin and Alla Zusman, who were investigating the possibilities for expanding TRIZ, analyzed the existing cases where TRIZ tools were applied to non-technical problems. As described in our previous publications, TRIZ offers two types of tools^[5]:

• Analytical tools that help to define, formulate and model a problem; these include ARIZ and Substance-Field Analysis (which were later complemented by the Innovation Situation Questionnaire and Problem Formulator)

• Knowledge-base tools that provide recommendations for system transformation (40 Innovation Principles, 76 Standard Solutions, collections of physical, chemical and geometrical effects, System of Operators, etc.)

In addition, TRIZ included several so-called "psychological operators"^[6] that facilitated the creative process.

Zlotin and Zusman’s analysis resulted in the following conclusions:

• The commonalties in the evolution of various technological systems, as discovered by Altshuller, can be further expanded into various non-technical areas. For example, basic TRIZ concepts such as ideality, contradictions and the systems approach are fully applicable to non-technical problems and situations. Eventually, these considerations led to a definition of Universal Patterns of Evolution.^[7]

• Analytical tools and psychological operators are directly applicable or can be easily modified to accommodate non-technical applications.

• Although existing knowledge-base tools were, in general, derived from technical information, the process of abstraction and generalization^[8] rendered some innovation principles universal (examples are inversion, segmentation, convert a harm into benefit, dynamization, self-service, etc.). Others have proven useful when imaginatively applied.

On the basis of the above conclusions, the following approach was developed to address problem solving and system evolution in non-technical areas:

• Transfer TRIZ patterns, problem-solving tools and algorithms into non-technical areas, identifying their applicability and adapting them to the new area.

• Transfer patterns from other areas (biology, sociology, psychology, etc.) into TRIZ; identifying their applicability and adapting them to TRIZ.

This approach substantially accelerated the expansion of TRIZ and provided a common basis for problem solving in the following areas.

• Development of a system of universal and general patterns of evolution

• Solving scientific problems

• Development of methods having to do with safety

• Development of the theory of evolution of organizations, as well as TRIZ applications for solving business, management and social problems

• Computerization of TRIZ and the development of TRIZSoft^[9]

• Development of the Directed Evolution application^[10]

• Children’s education

It is significant that for most of his life, Altshuller did not capitalize on his work with TRIZ, nor was TRIZ supported by the Soviet government or academia.^[11] From the mid-1950s, Altshuller’s main source of income was writing science fiction.^[12] Working in parallel on TRIZ and science fiction stories, Altshuller (not surprisingly) applied his TRIZ discoveries to the area of science fiction. Following the approach he had developed of amassing a library of solutions, he began collecting and updating a library of science fiction ideas, which eventually contained descriptions of approximately 20,000 science fiction situations. Similar to his Levels of Innovation, Altshuller created a system of classification for this library as well. He also studies the writings of several famous science fiction writers (H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, etc.) and proved that their fantasies had a higher percentage of realization than professional futurists.

As a result of these parallel efforts, Altshuller came to understand that reading, discussing and creating fantastic ideas is very useful in helping inventors increase their creative imagination. Based on the library of science fiction ideas, Altshuller developed several methods of enhancing creative imagination, along with a set of training exercises. These methods and exercises, together with the book Science Fiction for Engineers and Inventors (written by Altshuller’s student and colleague Pavel Amnuel) were distributed among leading TRIZ schools and specialists in the early 1970s between, and became the foundation for a course in Creative Imagination Enhancement (CIE).

Besides the study of methods based on science fiction, a typical CIE course contained special training for reducing psychological inertia (including Smart Little Creatures Modeling and Dimension-Time-Cost operators), and the systems approach (multi-screen creative thinking). These courses also entailed the study of famous artists^[13], writers and others.

In 1975-6, St. Petersburg TRIZ University^[14] offered the first CIE course for inventors. Besides material developed and recommended by Altshuller, this course contained a broader use of psychological approaches as well as new exercises and case studies. The first course was taught by Boris Zlotin^[15]; the following year, one of Zlotin’s top students, Simon Litvin, began teaching the course. Together, Zlotin and Litvin developed new CIE course materials and published a paper^[16], and for many of the years that followed, Litvin was the university’s primary CIE teacher.

Later, many other schools began teaching CIE, adding to the course the application of TRIZ elements to non-technical situations (art, sport, human interaction, etc.). It became clear that TRIZ and the arts were mutually beneficial. Some TRIZ schools started including in their CIE courses tours in art museums, attendance at musical concerts, discussions of fiction, etc.

In 1978 Boris Zlotin taught a 120-hour course in creativity for journalists, using the CIE course as a foundation. To establish a method for evaluating the course, a set of high-validity psychological tests was developed that would measure each student’s creative capabilities before and after the course. This course included newly-developed techniques for generating ideas for stories, along with elegant analogies and other elements related to creativity in literature. These methods were later utilized by the authors and their colleagues.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Simon Litvin taught TRIZ and a CIE course to a group of leading Russian science fiction writers: Olga Larionova, Andrey Balabuha, Boris Strugatskiy, and others.

CIE was both educational and entertaining, and by the end of the 1970s had become a substantial part of TRIZ courses. But in 1980 at the first TRIZ conference for TRIZ developers, Altshuller appealed to the audience to "kill CIE." His reason was that TRIZ was becoming an exact science, with its tools becoming more powerful and methodical, and thus there was no longer a need for "CIE crutches."^[17] As a result of this discussion, the portion of CIE included in TRIZ courses was reduced. It remained, however, an important part of the TRIZ education for certain types of students, namely children and non-technical audiences.

In spite of his intentions to "kill" CIE, during the 1980s Altshuller developed several other CIE methods, including:

• Utilization of TRIZ elements (ideality, contradictions, etc.) in generating fairy tails and fantasies. Students at TRIZ seminars usually completed these exercises with great enthusiasm. Later, some of them used fairy tails in children’s education (see below).

• Development of the Fantasy Scale,^[18] which incorporated a technique for evaluating and improving science fiction ideas

In addition to the CIE courses being taught, research was conducted by several TRIZ specialists in various areas of art and performance, including:

• Music^[19]
• Art and sculpture^[20]
• Cartoons^[21]
• Poetry^[22]

Extensive research was also conducted in the area of human interaction with pieces of art based on an approach similar to substance-field analysis by Juliy and Ingrid Murashkovski (who for many years taught TRIZ creativity methods to professional artists and architects). Their work included numerous illustrations, algorithms, case studies and other educational material.

Conclusion

TRIZ has accumulated a substantial amount of material useful in psychologically preparing an individual to become an inventor. This material is useful in enhancing analogical thinking skills, and can be an important asset to education.

In the early 1980s, TRIZ began to gain visibility, due in part to its connections with Value Engineering (which was supported by the Soviet government^[24] ). This publicity resulted in numerous seminars and workshops on TRIZ in which several thousand engineers were educated. But in spite of a rigorous (at least 50 hours) education in TRIZ, only a small percentage of students continued to apply TRIZ in their professional activities. This was extremely disappointing to Altshuller, who believed that everyone who learned TRIZ should become a lifetime fan and adopt the mission of disseminating TRIZ throughout the world. In an attempt to resolve this dilemma, Altshuller initiated a research effort in the mid-1980s, involving numerous TRIZ specialists and students in the collection and analysis of information about various creative individuals. The purpose of this research was to identify patterns in the formation of a creative personality that could be utilized to increase the effectiveness of TRIZ education. First were identified the following qualities necessary to become a lifetime creator:

• A significant personal goal
• The ability to create and carry out an action plan
• Being a hard working individual
• Being experienced in the use of creative problem-solving techniques
• Being persistent ("thick skinned")
• The ability to achieve intermediate useful results (i.e., to ascertain that you are "on the right track")

Together with Igor Vertkin, Altshuller developed the Lifetime Strategy for a Creative Individual (LSCI), comprising effective actions recommended for an individual to develop and implement high-level creative goals. LSCI takes the form of a lifetime "game" between a creator and the "external environment" that counteracts the creative lifestyle and attempts to convert the inventor into a passive individual. The six creative qualities along with LSCI eventually resulted in a branch of TRIZ called the Theory of Building a Creative Personality (TBCP).^[25]

According to Altshuller’s usual approach of accumulating a relevant knowledge base, a substantial amount of information related to the lives of famous creative people – from Jesus to Lenin – has been amassed. Absent from this list, however, were contemporary successful business people, politicians, managers, and creators of huge political and financial empires such as Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Lee Iacocca, and others. In fact, LSCI was based upon limited information regarding totalitarian or past societies (before the age of technology) where creative people were neglected or even despised. As a result, it reflected a tragic experience, which discouraged people from devoting their lives to creativity. Yet at the same time it was embraced by a certain type of pessimistic student, as it served to justify their negative experiences.

After the first version of LSCI was published, many TRIZ developers began independently conducting their own research in the area of creative accomplishment. Some results caused certain assumptions of LSCI to come into question, just as the following conclusions were made:

• The tragic lives led by many inventors was related to the fact that because they were extremely creative in certain areas, they didn’t consider that the promotion and implementation of their ideas was a process that also required creative solutions. They didn’t know how to unveil useful resources, make helpful connections, sponsors, etc.

• Often the features of a creative individual that were advantageous in the early first stages of a "cause" – such as devotion (or even fanaticism), an inability to compromise and/or maneuver, and very high self-esteem – can be a detriment during the implementation stage.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Altshuller focused on TBCP, virtually abandoning all other TRIZ work. He considered this subject crucial for the survival of TRIZ, and recommended that related courses be introduced in all TRIZ schools and incorporated in the curriculum of independent TRIZ educators. The results of this promotion were controversial – the majority of students either completely or partially rejected Altshuller’s approach, and examples of its positive impact are few.^[26]

For a time, the Kishinev TRIZ School presented LSCI within the context of safety instructions showing dangers that should be avoided and how this might be accomplished. Today, we view the subject as a part of more powerful approach, called Directed Evolution, that allows an individual to control his/her future.^[27]

Today, it is clear that teaching creativity to children is one of the most significant directions taken by non-technical TRIZ. Altshuller (Altov) pioneered this endeavor in the mid-1970s with a permanent "inventor’s page" in the central Soviet children’s newspaper Pionerskaya Pravda (which had more than 5 million subscribers). Over 50 such pages offered educational material targeted to teenagers covering the basic TRIZ elements and including practice problems and inventor’s contests. Typically, between 10,000 to 20,000 responses were obtained per page, all of which were carefully analyzed by Altshuller and served as a source for the further development of TRIZ and for advancing the creative education of children. Eventually, these materials became the foundation for a book.²⁸

During the 1970s, occasional seminars and classes for children (mostly teenagers) were conducted in various locations throughout the Soviet Union, and Altshuller's inventor’s pages became the instructional materials for these. In 1982, regular classes were launched in Kishinev. Evgeniya Rabinovich, a manager at the Children Institute’s "Pioneers’ Palace," organized a two-year TRIZ school which held one or two 4-hour classes each week (among the teachers were Boris Zlotin, Alla Zusman, Len Kaplan, Svetlana Visnepolschi, and Vladimir Oleynikov). An average class was composed of 15 to 25 children ranging in age from 10 to 16 years old. This school served as the foundation for a variety of work, among which resulted the following:

• Teachers and students of a local pedagogical college participated and practiced in the learning and teaching of TRIZ

• 33 monthly TRIZ pages published in the newspaper Youth of Moldova, containing new materials on TRIZ and CIE, inventors’ contests, contests for the best science fiction stories, etc.

• Television shows in which children who had been educated in TRIZ competed with engineers from Kishinev’s industrial companies to solve their problems, the results of which were evaluated on the spot by designated experts

• A documentary film about TRIZ School was produced and widely shown

• For seven years, TRIZ specialists participated in children’s summer schools, teaching TRIZ to groups of 30 to 40 children every year. These schools attracted other TRIZ educators as well as professional teachers interested in teaching TRIZ to various audiences. As a result:
  • Over 250 children were taught
  • Over 50 teachers gained theoretical and practical experience in TRIZ, which later allowed them to organize TRIZ educational programs in their originating schools.²⁹
  • A book detailing the experience gained during the summer schools³⁰ was written in the form of a diary spanning thirty days of TRIZ classes. Even today it is a valuable TRIZ educational book for children, parents and teachers.

As mentioned earlier, the first attempts at teaching TRIZ to children mainly addressed students at the middle-school and high-school levels. In 1984, we made the first attempt to teach TRIZ to 6- and 7-year-olds with a year-long program held one hour per week at the elementary school. The experiment clearly showed that very young children can be successfully taught creativity if appropriate adjustments to the problems are made.

At the same time, we began a monthly publication for young children in the Moldovian newspaper Young Pioneer. Newspaper articles were written as a set³¹ of fairy tails portraying the adventures of a young boy named Peter and a wise inventor from ancient Greece named Daedalus. Daedalus worked as an all-knowing aide, helping inventors by guiding them through the right process and providing them with useful methods and principles.

In 1986 we started an experiment in which the TRIZ approach was used to teach conventional school subjects. The basic idea was quite simple: students acquired the necessary knowledge by solving interesting technical problems with the help of TRIZ tools. Using methods developed for solving scientific problems,³² students were challenged to find explanations for simple physical experiments. Students who "invented" the Archimedes’ Law on their own found that this complex physical law was much easier to understand than if one had learned by reading a textbook.³³ And of course a side effect of this approach is that, together with the main subject, students learn the TRIZ basics.

The above experiments started with physics; later the same approach was used with chemistry, geography, history, literature and social sciences. Eventually, a book was compiled of TRIZ physics and chemistry lessons.³⁴ Materials for other subjects were prepared as well, but due to lack of time were never published.

In the 1980s and 90s many members of the Kishinev TRIZ school, along with TRIZ specialists from other cities in the former Soviet Union, were involved in teaching TRIZ to children. In the early 1980s, Len Kaplan became a full-time TRIZ teacher for a special organization devoted to disseminating and teaching technical innovations to children. Luba Begam (now in Israel), who had studied at the two-year TRIZ school mentioned earlier, became a professional TRIZ teacher. Michael Shusterman, together with his wife Zena, organized a special center in Norilsk for teaching TRIZ to 4- and 5-year-olds and their teachers.³⁵

Sergey and Galina Malkin were teaching TRIZ in kindergarten where Galina (a biologist by education) was working as a teacher. Esther Zlotin and Vladimir Petrov taught TRIZ in St. Petersburg and later in Israel. A unique experience was gained by Alla Nesterenko from Petrozavodsk. As daughter of long-time TRIZ specialist Alexander Selutskiy, she became familiar with TRIZ from an early age; after graduation she became a teacher at an elementary school.³⁶

In the early 1990s the economic situation in the former Soviet Union abruptly deteriorated, virtually ending all opportunities regarding technological TRIZ. As a result, the majority of TRIZ specialists switched to other areas (see below), and children’s education became one of the most powerful TRIZ applications. To the best of our knowledge, most of these organizations today are represented by TRIZ – Chance, which was organized by a highly-experienced TRIZ professional, Igor Vikentiev (St. Petersburg). In 1989 he arranged the first conference (which was held in Petrozavodsk) of TRIZ specialists and educators involved in educating children. Another noteworthy educational project, Jonathan Livingston, was organized in Minsk by Nikolai Khomenko. Numerous books and papers have been published devoted to children’s TRIZ education.³⁷

One of the most impressive non-technical TRIZ applications was in medicine. From the 1970s, long-time TRIZ specialist Alexander Selutskii began teaching TRIZ to students at Petrozavodsk University medical school. Together with his students, he solved numerous problems related to improving medical equipment and treatment methods.

Example

Extremely cold winters in Petrozavodsk were the cause of many deaths due to hypothermia (overcooling). Often, hypothermic victims were found still alive, but did not survive because there was no safe and effective way to warm them quickly. The usual methods, which included surrounding the patient with a warm environment, rubbing the body, and providing warm drinks (including alcohol), caused blood to rush to the skin surface, depriving crucial organs such as the heart and brain of oxygen and resulting in death. This problem was addressed – without success – by several countries during World War II in an attempt to save the lives of naval and air force personnel operating in cold seas. After the war, the idea of using microwaves for this purpose was considered, but no successful results were reported.

After being educated in TRIZ, doctor Tatti came up with the idea of utilizing the body’s own blood flow as a resource for quickly delivering warmth to the heart and other important organs. To implement the idea, he suggested applying heating pads to the places in which the largest arteries are close to the skin surface, including the neck, underarms, and other areas. This simple method was responsible for saving many people and resulted in the design of comfortable work gear for people working in cold open areas. Interestingly, this same idea, applied in reverse, can help people working in hot areas (i.e., instead of heat, ice pads are applied to the targeted areas of the body.)

TRIZ was extensively applied to medicine by physician and TRIZ specialist Arcadiy Lichachev, Gennadiy Predein, an engineer working for an orthopedic company, experienced TRIZ specialist Boris Faber, a director at the Russian Orthopedic Research Institute, and others. Gafur Zainiev utilized TRIZ approaches in his research related to DNA. In the United States, Ideation has achieved positive results working with medical equipment and sanitary products.

We believe that medicine should become one of the most important directions for the utilization of TRIZ, and would like to participate (or facilitate) the work with such widespread diseases as cancer, AIDS, etc.

The first attempt to apply TRIZ to solving scientific problems (i.e., to make discoveries) was made by Genrich Altshuller in the early 1960s.³⁸ Following the procedure described earlier, Altshuller analyzed certain facts from the history of scientific discoveries. As a result, he identified two types of discovery:

• Discovery of a new fact/phenomenon
• Finding an explanation (discovering a mechanism) to a fact/phenomenon that doesn’t comply with existing theories

As a next step, Altshuller unveiled and formulated a set of methods that proved helpful in discovering new facts or developing plausible theories. He applied these methods to the mystery of Tungusskiy meteorite – a set of mysterious events associated with a huge meteorite that entered the Earth’s atmosphere in the early 1900s and disappeared. This work of Altshuller’s might be dismissed as an exercise in pure fantasy (which it was); however, it resulted in the invention (prediction!) of the physical phenomenon of the self-concentration of laser beams in non-linear mediums, later discovered by a physicist by the name of Askaryan.

In the 1970s, Altshuller disciples Igor Kondrakov and Gennadiy Filkovskiy completed several works in the above direction discovered by Altshuller. About the same time, Valery Tzourikov and Georgiy Golovchenko made their discoveries in the area of astrophysics and plant biology as a result of applying the TRIZ approach.³⁹

A significant contribution to the subject was made by Volyuslav Mitrofanov. As a chief engineering deputy at the large semi-conductor company Svetlana (the Russian equivalent of Intel) he was actually a high-level troubleshooter. At the same time he also managed and taught at the largest public TRIZ University in St. Petersburg, and conducted his own TRIZ research. Working to implement the first microchips, he faced numerous baffling effects in production, which had to be resolved. As a result, he solved numerous inventive and scientific problems and implemented most of his solutions, giving him the ability to quickly test his scientific ideas. In time, scientific problems became his main interest. He published several papers and a book on this subject,⁴⁰ in which the most important ideas are the following:

• Unveiling asymmetry in various systems (from machines to molecules) as the underlying cause of contradictions; utilization asymmetry as a driving source of evolution; unveiling ways to compensate for asymmetry.

• The idea of conducting opposite experiments – i.e., conducting a pair of experiments directed toward achieving opposite results or utilizing alternative methods. If indeed opposite results were obtained, then a critical third experiment was conducted.

• Modifying conventional TRIZ tools and instruments such as the patterns of evolution, ideality, contradictions, SF formulas, utilization of analogies, etc. for the purpose of solving scientific problems.

• A seven-step process for solving scientific problems, including:
  • Unveiling asymmetry and methods of compensating for it
  • Conducting an opposite experiment
  • Identifying and resolving physical or technical contradictions
  • Utilizing patterns of evolution
  • Utilizing resources available in the system and its environment (especially time resources)
  • Building an ideal model of the solution
  • Identifying how to produce an observed phenomenon

Using this approach, Mitrofanov successfully identified the mechanism underlying a physical effect named after the physicist Russell (who had discovered this effect in the 19th century but had no adequate explanation regarding its nature). Solving this scientific problem, Mitrofanov was able to build an important device for producing microchips, for which he received a special award. He also made several other important discoveries in the area of solid state physics, solved numerous inventive problems, and unveiled the root causes of numerous production defects (then eliminated them) in the semi-conductor industry.

In the mid-1970s, Boris Zlotin, Mitrofanov’s student and later a TRIZ educator and board member at St. Petersburg TRIZ University, became involved in scientific work led by Mitrofanov. In the early 1980s he continued this work together with Alla Zusman. At that time, they were committed to developing a system for solving scientific problems and started collecting and documenting typical scientific problems and solutions following Altshuller’s basic approach. A year of work yielded only several dozen reliable situations (the main obstacle, as discussed earlier, was the absence of a system of documentation – similar to the patent library – of such solutions). It became clear that their work was "a long shot." At the same time, Ms. Zusman suggested utilizing and analyzing a resource that was available – namely, the scientific problems solved by TRIZ professionals. Together with the understanding that the nature of scientific problems and production defects (or failures with unknown root causes) were the same, this approach led to the formulation of the idea of transferring known TRIZ approaches into a new area. The only thing that was missing was the actual principle of transfer allowing the new type of problem to be converted into the known one. In the case of scientific problems, this principle was known as Problem Inversion.

The essence of Problem Inversion is simple: instead of asking "How can a certain phenomenon be explained?" one asks "How can this phenomenon be obtained under existing conditions?" The problem therefore becomes a typical inventive problem and can be attacked using existing TRIZ tools such as the innovation principles, ARIZ, Operators, etc.

When solving converted scientific problems the concept of utilizing resources becomes extremely important. Of course, the utilization of resources is critical when solving inventive problems, as it helps increase the solution ideality – but in many situations this might not be possible. In solving scientific problems, however, the utilization of resources is mandatory, because if a certain event has already taken place, the necessary resources were in fact present.

Besides making available the TRIZ tools and approaches, problem inversion makes it possible to apply conventional technological knowledge to solve scientific problems.

Example

It is well known that a runner should breathe through the nose rather than the mouth. Running while breathing deeply through a wide-open mouth quickly causes the runner to pant for air. Amazing as it sounds, there is no adequate explanation for why this happens (other than the obvious fact that breathing through the nose requires more efforts and yields less air). We asked a physician specializing in sports medicine for an explanation. He gave us two reasons:

• Breathing through the nose warms the air before it enters the lungs, and therefore does not cause overcooling of the body
• The nose works as a filter, preventing dust from entering the lungs.

After some consideration, both these explanations seemed erroneous. First, in the summertime we were usually concerned with high ambient temperature rather than overcooling. Second, the air where we were running was clean enough.

We decided to apply the principle of Problem Inversion to this situation. The inverted problem therefore became: How can we force a person to pant?

We knew of at least one method: hyperventilation (i.e., breathing deeply and frequently, which produces the same result – usually explained as the result of saturating the blood with oxygen). The cause was still unclear, however, because breathing in an oxygen-rich environment doesn’t cause panting. Moreover, when one is running there is usually a lack of oxygen.

The next step was to look for a similar effect in technology. To make this transition, it was necessary to create a mechanical model of "breathing." If we regarded the lung as a pump, the question became: how can we force this pump to work ineffectively? As it happened, one of the authors was at that time working for a company that designed water pumps; he readily ascertained that a pump works ineffectively if it is not properly loaded. That is, if a pump that is designed to pump water from 400 meters is forced to work at 4 meters, or work without any water at all, all the energy consumed by the pump turns to heat and eventually destroys the pump.

If the above technical fact is applied to that of a runner, the following hypothesis can be formulated: When one breathes through a wide open mouth, there is not enough load for the "pump" (lung), which might result in ineffective work and substantial loss of energy. On the contrary, breathing through the nose allows the lung to be properly loaded.

We conducted a simple experiment by attempting to breathe through tightly-closed teeth and half-closed lips. The results were even better than those obtained when breathing through the nose: it became possible to change the air resistance depending on the mode of running (a super-effect!).

The idea of Problem Inversion looks rather simple, yet it resulted in several non-trivial effects. One of these was the relief from the psychological pressure of dealing with a "mystery," which makes scientific problems appear more difficult than they really are. Another effect is that of breaking the inertia of accepting a well-known explanation without challenging its validity. Unfortunately, the accepted explanation is not necessarily the correct one, and often contains circular definitions or, in the worst case, prevents us from looking for the true root causes and explanations.

A solution obtained using Problem Inversion lets us formulate a hypothesis, which must be verified (and TRIZ can help with this as well). This approach essentially transforms the process of solving a scientific problem into one of inventing an explanatory mechanism. And once the mechanism of a phenomenon is fully understood, it can be controlled (i.e., amplified, weakened, eliminated, etc.).

The approach described above was successfully applied first by the authors for the purpose of solving several research problems related to little understood situations with deep-level water pumps. In 1985 we started teaching the Problem Inversion approach to our students. One student, Anatoliy Yoisher, used it to solve a critical problem in the area of micro-wire production that had gone unresolved for more than 15 years.⁴¹ Based on his solution, he completed his Ph.D. dissertation and was able to quickly begin production of a new type of micro-wire. To date, dozens of scientific problems in different areas, including physics, chemistry, math, and biology, have been solved.

It was also found that the same approach could help in solving criminal problems and in identifying the root causes of production defects and failures. This last application became the most effective one. Apparently, people are usually in no hurry to implement new inventive ideas (especially if the old idea is adequate), however, finding the root causes of failures and fixing them quickly provides a tangible return on investment.

Besides solving specific scientific problems, we continued working in the following areas:

• Refining techniques related to the application of TRIZ tools to scientific problems
• Unveiling and formulating patterns of evolution of scientific systems (theories and hypothesis)
• Developing general methods of building new scientific concepts.

To test our findings, we decided to apply them to some large-scale problems. After careful selection, we identified the following three areas:

• Building TRIZ as a conventional science
• The theory of evolution of social systems
• Enhancing the theory of biological evolution

The first item has been addressed in previous publications.⁴² The other two will be addressed in separate publications.^43,44

1. Manual Problem Formulation technique

2. Structured innovation knowledge base containing:

3. Recommendations for evaluating and enhancing the generated ideas

4. Software "Help" that included the following information:

 

•  Periodic avalanche-like events caused by positive feedback (reinforcing loop)

 

•  System structure depends on various flows passing through the system that can change its structure or destroy it (flows passing through the super-system can create the system). Specific flows that pass through and change/form our social system are transposition of people, goods, documents (instructions, assignments, orders), money, credits, bonds, information, services, etc.

1. Situation (position on the S-curve) of the core technology (business, mission or cause)

2. Organizational structure (formal and informal)

3. An organization’s interactions with its super-systems, including:

4. Functions (internal and external) performed by an organization

5. Organizational resources (obvious and hidden)

6. Motivations and interests of formal and informal groups

7. Various flows (see above) inside the organization, and their exchanges with the super-system(s)

8. Organizational culture

9. History and evolution of the organization, including

10. Mechanisms determining the following:

11. Organizational intellectual capital

Based on the analysis described above, the following steps are taken:

12. Utilization of patterns of evolution for revealing potential evolution scenarios

13. Solving the revealed problems in the organization’s structure, operation and core business/technology, and clarifying the potential paths for evolution

14. Selecting appropriate paths

15. Restructuring and securing intellectual capital

1. Basic models of evolution, including:

2. Models based on feedback, including:

3. Non-linear models of evolution, including:

4. Crisis models

5. Administrating/managing basic flows within organizations

6. Models related to the emergence and elimination (dismissal) of an organization

7. "Hydraulic" models related to the distribution of flows throughout the society or organization, including:

8. "Energetic" models, including:

9. Dynamic models, including:

10. Models of hierarchical growth, including:

11. Model-description of organizational structure and behavior, including:

12. Strategic models of evolution including:

13. Models related to the transformation of economic and political systems, including:

14. Innovation models of evolution (based on the universal patterns of evolution), including:

15. Models derived from the pattern Matching-Mismatching with respect to organizations and their environments, including:

16. Models related to popular fallacies and prejudices, including:

1. Social flows are produced by resource gradients – i.e., the excess of a specific resource in one place and its deficit in another.

2. Any social flow (or its component) that passes through a specific social system produces (supports and/or strengthens) a certain structure.

3. A social system produced by a certain flow tends toward self-preservation (homeostasis) and growth in the following ways:

4. The structurization and diversification of a flow r