Customer Reviews

And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared: TRIZ, the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Don't be fooled by the description as an "introduction" in the same way most technical fields have "Executive level" texts written for them.... By introduction, the meaning is more "Brief explanation" and "Brief" being in contrast to "Wordy" rather than "Simple, dumbed down but useless in practice."

There is an immense amount of information in the few pages, and the concepts are deceptively simple.... I find I can only make it through a chapter or two at a time before my brain is full from thinking about how to use the ideas offered.....

I am surprised that this sort of material has not been offered at the University level to engineering students -- it would be a perfect fit.

This book, written by Altshuller (the creator of TRIZ) under a pseudonym, is aimed at secondary school students and while not rigorous in its development, provides an entertaining look at how the methods of TRIZ can be applied to a variety of problems. Semyon D. Savransky, Ph.D. (TRIZnik)

This is the best introduction to TRIZ available. H.Altov (G.Altshuller) explain many aspects of TRIZ, but don't expect to become a TRIZ master with only this lecture. I recommend this book for those TRIZ is a new subject. Engineers! It's a must have!

I find this book difficult to read. The subject matter is not difficult. The way it is written doesn't make things more difficult than needed, actually I have the feeling it oversimplifies. Every concept is introduced with an example or two, three and then the concept is discussed - a little bit. The examples, give the feeling that the text of the book is quite old. Is this typical for Russian instructional books?
I haven't completed the book, I will do so. This book has its merrits as a very simple introduction to TRIZ for people who do not intend to use TRIZ professionaly. I will look for an additional more technical book.

TRIZ is not a simple method although it is a very powerful thinking tool yet to be defeated in the technical problem solving arena. This book is a piece of Masterity on how to easily and with entertainment explain the basics of TRIZ. Any person, notonly engineers, wanting to know what TRIZ can do, should pass a very good time reading the book. For the younger, this book will let an influence for searching exploring and solving! problems. Translated also into spanish, the book is a best selling all over the world.

And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared- it is exceptionally good book for reading & practicing. It can be read by a curious person of any age.

written in so simple way that it can be read as a story book.
This book imparts total new vision about creative problem solving by TRIZ methods.

though this is an introductory book, it has great potential to stimulate thinking process for technical problem solving.

100% recomended for a person trying to learn TRIZ techniques for Engineering problem solving

Unfortunately I did not enjoy this book to the extent that other readers have. The subject of TRIZ (The Russian acronym for the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) is quite fascinating, and I look forward to learning more. It was my opinion that since this book was written by the man who developed this idea, that it would be my best source for learning the material.

What I found was that a number of the solutions presented were either wrong by my experience, or would not be practical to implement in most situations. It is possible that things were lost in translation from the original Russian version of the book to the English version.

What disturbed me the most is that it seemed the author was talking down to his readers; this too may have been due to translation. As a result, I found this book very difficult to read, and is not one I would personally recommend.

The book starts with good examples, and is definitely interesting to read. However, I am not convinced by the way Genrikh Altshuller has synthesized his experience and knowledge. The contents of the book can definitely transform a good inventor to a better inventor, but that's about it. The claims and propganda about TRIZ on the world wide web are far mor exaggerated, as a reader with critical thinking skills (aka reading with open mind) will quickly realize after reading this book.

I'm a long time inventor and product developer. This book presents new ideas on how to be a creative inventor, and that is a wonderful thing when you're trying to develop the simplest, cheapest solution to a problem. We can never have too many aids to stimulate our thinking!

I became intrigued by Genrich Altshuller and TRIZ after reading about him in Salon.com a couple years ago. This introduction to his ideas is well worth the money. I just find it ironic that Altshuller developed his theory in a society stereotyped by Western conservative and libertarian intellectuals (e.g., Ayn Rand) as totally lacking incentives for intellectually demanding productive achievements. Altshuller's empirically rigorous inquiry into the real nature of inventive problem solving, based on the Soviet-era equivalent of patents (which shouldn't even have existed, according to some Westerners), discredits the view that the communist system destroyed human initiative.

Too bad Altshuller had to spend his life in such a bureaucratic and inefficient society. If he had been able to introduce TRIZ effectively into the United States back in the 1950's, perhaps we wouldn't be facing some of the technological nuisances we're dealing with now. As it is, some of his dedicated followers have migrated to the West, and are introducing TRIZ into American technical and engineering education. Altshuller's book, unlike how-to-invent books written by Americans, isn't burdened with discussions about the patent process and using one's inventions to make money, which wouldn't have made sense in the Soviet context any way. Instead it's full of real-life examples showing how the principles he discovered can be applied to the real world.

One major drawback in the book, however, is Altshuller's assumption that the reader is better educated than is usually the case in the United States. His comments about what high-school students are supposed to know about physics reveal that the Soviet school system, unlike America's democratically-meddled-with counterpart, didn't dumb down the science curriculum in response to political pressures.