Darrell Mann and Ellen Domb in their article “40 Inventive (Business) Principles With Examples” attempt to demonstrate that set in a business context Altshuller‘s 40 Inventive Principles exhibit a number of similarities and differences relative to their use in technical problem solving applications.

Here are some illustrations how Inventive Principles work in real life situations:

Casino architecture

“Nested Doll” principle suggest to place one object inside another or make one part pass through a cavity in the other. Las Vegas casino hotel style may serve as a great illustration. The guest must pass through the gaming area to get to the restaurant, the hotel registration and even the lavatories.

Public relations

The  principle called “Preliminary Anti-Action” refers to anti-actions that can control harmful effects. When making a public announcement, it is adviceable to include all the information, not just the harmful parts. This principle was successfully used by Johnson & Johnson while handling of the Tylenol tampering case. The company put customer safety first, before they worried about their companies profit and other financial concerns. Thus they were highly praised in press.

Fashion industry

The “Preliminary Action” principle. J. P. Deschamps, P. R. Nayak  in  “Business & Economics” emphasize that  Benetton uses this principle in the way of “retarded differentiation” strategy – clothing is knitted before it is dyed; colour is only applied when the season’s popular colours emerge. This strategy, allows Benetton to react very quickly to changing customer tastes, rather than trying to predict or force them.

Business

The “Dynamics” principle advices to  divide an object into parts capable of movement relative to each other.

If an object (or process) is rigid or inflexible, it is worth to make it movable or adaptive. Customer is able to control and move cameras to point to different products in different parts of the store from his/her home computer (www.galleryfurniture.com)

Flexible organisation structure (chaocracy) also is a great illustration of this principle.

Success

The “Skipping” principle stands for conducting a process, or certain stages (e.g. destructive, harmful or hazardous operations) at high speed. Shortly, it means  ”Fail fast, learn fast”. J. Watson, IBM founder, said: “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate”

R. Luecke in the book “Scuttle Your Battleships Before Advancing” mentiones the “open dissent” policy of Motorola – employees fill in a minority report to senior management when ideas they consider valuable are unsupported by colleagues and immediate superiors.

To use  40 Inventive Principles, Darrell Mann and Ellen Domb advice to formulate your problem using the same TRIZ methods used for technical problems. It is particularly helpful to formulate the ideal final result and the reasons that the ideal cannot be achieved.

Somebody, someplace, has already solved your problem or one similar to it. Creativity means finding that solution and adapting it to the current problem.

Don’t accept compromises. Eliminate them.

Examples of this principle include:

1. The pharmaceutical industry found ways to manage foam in the production process by studying the beer industry.
2. Medical information technology requires stringent privacy protection under Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations. Many solutions are being found in systems developed for the banking and securities industries.
3. Paint companies have problems with the accumulation of sludge in processing equipment. The nuclear waste disposal industry has found many ways to prevent the buildup of sludge because removing it is extremely difficult and requires shutting down the facility for a long time.

The idea of eliminating problems rather than accepting compromises goes against the grain of standard business and engineering teaching, which emphasizes tradeoffs, cost-benefit analyses and other methods of compromise. TRIZ recognizes two kinds of compromises (frequently called “contradictions“):

• Technical contradictions . These are the classic engineering and business trade-offs in which the desired state can’t be reached because something else in the system prevents it. In other words, when something gets better, something else gets worse. Examples include:
  

   Product gets stronger (i.e., good), but the weight increases (i.e., bad).

   Bandwidth increases (good) but requires more power (bad).

   Service is customized to each customer (good), but the service delivery system becomes complicated (bad).

     Automobile airbags deploy quickly to protect the passenger (good), but the faster they deploy, the more likely they are to injure or kill small or out-of-position people (bad).

• Physical contradictions. Also called “inherent” contradictions, these include situations in which one object or system has contradictory or opposing requirements. Everyday examples abound:
  

   Surveillance aircraft should fly fast to their destinations but also slowly to collect data over the target.

   Software should be easy to use but include many complex features and options.

   Coffee should be hot for enjoyable drinking but cool enough to prevent burning consumers.

Training should be thorough but not take too much time.

TRIZ doesn’t depend on team members’ knowledge or their personal creative capability to solve these problems. The first group, the “technical” or “tradeoff” contradictions, are solved using the 40 principles of problem solving. Many people have expanded on the original TRIZ research to demonstrate that the 40 principles apply to a wide variety of disciplines. (See The TRIZ Journal www.triz-journal.com] for examples of the 40 principles in chemical engineering, sales, microelectronics, education and quality management, among others.)
Conclusion :

TRIZ has been incorporated into the general corporate culture for global companies in a wide variety of industries–Siemens, Samsung, LG, Unilever, Agilent, Hitachi, Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson and Delphi are among those that have talked about their TRIZ experiences at recent conferences. Small and medium-sized organizations with less- familiar names are adopting TRIZ to support quality improvement in services, products and systems in fields as diverse as restoring the vitality of a downtown to creating software to improve sales of eyeglasses.

How do you recognize when quality requires creativity? When the solutions that your team creates don’t get rid of the root cause. That’s a strong indication that unrecognized contradictions are blocking you from finding a good solution, and that TRIZ will be the next tool you need.

source: qualitydigest.com

For a long time I”ve noticed that I can’t read more than 20 pages of all the success promising books. Just because all the pseudo optimistic matter feels far from my reality. However, this time it was a pleasant surprise for me to discover the book, written by Keith Ferrazzi.
“Never eat alone” this is the title that bears a lot in itself and therefore attracted my attention. So, after three days of deep engagement in reading I’ve finished all the 310 pages and I am willing to share everything that I’ve found worth considering, remembering and practising:

• The only thing that separates equally talented people of different financial state is the amount of impertinence in asking for help.
  

That’s the key point which is apparent in the whole book – ask for help whenever you need it and help others whenever you can.
Keith Ferrazzi has created a huge database of people he know and people he would like to meet. So, this is his main tool helping him to reach his success. Reading the book I was feeling how much energy, enthusiasm and initiative this man has.

• Remember people’s birthdays. They are important for them even if they keep denying it.

While riding in a taxi Keith Ferrazzi calls everybody whose birthday is that morning and loudly sings “Happy birthday to you” for them (taxi drivers must have lots of fun during these vocal performances). Of course, these congratulations receive burst of laugh from everyone and this inevitably strengthen the relationship.

• Always keep in touch with people from your adress book. Make a short call, send them a message just to inquire about them.

And here is the main point – relationship is like muscle – the more you use them, the stronger they get. The same is with brain – the more you use them, the more problem you solve, the more effective you get. There is no limited amount of time you can appear to other people. The more we communicate with each other, the better friends we become.

• Arrange parties with lots of wine where interesting people can meet. The most suitable day is Wednesday because people are more relaxed comparing with the beggining of the week. Furthermore, you don’t confront with their weekend plans.

• Always offer your help to others. Don’t wait until they ask you. Act immediately.

Keith Ferrazzi makes usefull calls immediately he hears about some problem from his talker.

• Naked truth: everything that people need is a partner, money or a desire to change a world. Frankly speaking, I can’t deny that this doesn’t suit for me.
• The deepest emotional connections among people develop due to their preoccupations with health, children and wealth issues. If you help someone to improve matters in these spheres – you develop strong relationships.