Video: TRIZ Today

A one-hour video recording of my presentation "TRIZ Today" is available. This presentation was given during TRIZ Cafe meeting on June 17, 2009, in Amersfoort. This presentation focuses on explaining what modern TRIZ is. To see the video, please follow the link:

http://www.xtriz.com/trizcafe/trizcafevideo.htm

The video file should start playing automatically. If there are problems with viewing the video, a a stand-alone mpeg-4 file is also available for download at the same page as well as slides used in the presentation.

"TRIZ Fundamentals" course finalized

Last week the first part of the course "TRIZ Fundamentals" at the University of Twente was finalized. It included 80 hours of studying the TRIZ theory and practicing with modern and classical TRIZ tools. But in fact, it took more than 80 hours: since students spent their afternoons each day working on the assignments, it took them more time than was planned for some assignments - sometimes I received e-mails with questions from students around 22:00. It was probably my fault: I underestimated time needed for practical work since I used to work with professional audience - people who had experience with working under tight time constraints.

However looking at the results of the course, I feel very good. I'd say each assignment (in total, there were 9 different assignments for each group of students) was done quite well with nice presentations. And overall, each student evaluated the quality and usefullness of the course either "high" or "very high". It was my first experience of conducting such a lengthy course at the university; and frankly, such high marks were above my expectations.

Among the topics which students liked the most, were Root-Conflict Analysis, Inventive Principles, Inventive Standards. Almost everyone mentioned them in final evaluation sheets. Although all the students managed quite well with ARIZ, they found it less attractive (except the method of Miniature Dwarfs or Little Men). It is understandable: ARIZ requires long time of "playing" with different problem formulations and this process gets fuzzy sometimes, especially if a problem does not fit exactly the ARIZ format since the very beginning.

Students present results with ARIZ

During the next phase starting this fall, students will use knowledge they acquired to help with real-life innovative projects at companies: either solving a problem which requires an inventive solution, or participating in innovative product development with the use of TRIZ.

TRIZ Summer Course at Twente University

Today I've started a new offical course on TRIZ Fundamentals and Practical Applications at the University of Twente. The course is for B.Sc and M.Sc students of engineering and technical disciplines and has a new format: it is a two-week summer course (80) hours with later extension in autumn (additional 40) hours. Thus the course provides 5 credits for students in total (if they are successful, of course). Each day is split to two parts: lectures and practical assignments. Every morning, each group of students (3 persons per group) will present the results obtained during practical work a previous day. Both Tom Vaneker and Wessel Wits will assist me during the course.

The program includes general approach to modern innovation, TRIZ foundations, Ideality, Multi-Screen Thinking, Resources, Models and Trends of Technology Evolution, RCA+, Function Analysis and Trimming, Inventive Principles and Inventive Standards, Value-Conflict Mapping, ARIZ, Creative Imagination techniques and development of innovative thinking skills, evaluation techniques, aspects of TRIZ use and implementation, integration of TRIZ with other methods.

During the first day

Student present results of practical assignments