Customer Reviews

The Science of Innovation: A Managerial Overview of the TRIZ Methodology

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TRIZ is a facinating concept that has a lot of potential. I manage a technical staff of creative machine designers in the field of cryogenics. We've been developing a prototype machine that seems to be constantly evolving from one problem to another. The development problems associated with this machine represent many of the "System Conflicts" (related to temperature variations) described in the book. The techniques described in this book could have a significant impact on our efforts to standardize a working machine. I would like to have seen an expanded "System Conflict Matrix", definitions of attributes, and an explanation of how to make the transition from sub-technique identification to solution. One has to make too great a leap between these two critical steps. The book stops short of delivering on its promise.

TRIZ is a facinating concept that has a lot of potential. I manage a technical staff of creative machine designers in the field of cryogenics. We've been developing a prototype machine that seems to be constantly evolving from one problem to another. The development problems associated with this machine represent many of the "System Conflicts" (related to temperature variations) described in the book. The techniques described in this book could have a significant impact on our efforts to standardize a working machine. I would like to have seen an expanded "System Conflict Matrix", definitions of attributes, and an explanation of how to make the transition from sub-technique identification to solution. One has to make too great a leap between these two critical steps. The book stops short of delivering on its promise.

While this book does an adequate job presenting the need for innovation and the role TRIZ can play, most of the subjects receive insufficient coverage, even as an "overview" book.

The Ideal System and Physical Contradiction topics are covered clearly and concisely, and the Laws of Technological System Evolution is adequately presented in overview form. However, the System Conflicts do not receive the attention they deserve, given how powerful this simple tool can be, and the book provide neither a complete conflict matrix, nor a list of all 40 techniques for overcoming system conflicts. Also, the complex notation used in the substance-field examples is inadequately explained and the ARIZ examples describe the conclusions reached in each step of the process, but fail to describe to my satisfaction the thought process that takes the innovator from one step to the next.

Finally, the book fails to provide examples of applying TRIZ to solve any electronic or software problems, making it less useful to technologists in these areas and out of date for a 1997 publication.

A good short (82 pages) explanaition of the main TRIZ ideas developed in the former USSR between 1956 and 1989. The authors (Victor Fey & Eugene Rivin) illustrate the TRIZ tools through few problems that were solved by TRIZniks in past years. Semyon D. Davtansky, Ph.D. The TRIZ Experts