Master Class: Using TRIZ for Business and Management to Increase Business Competitiveness

On May 26 in Minsk, Belarus, I run an open master class on applying TRIZ for Business and Management to innovatively increase business competitiveness. The audience (about 40 participants) was very enthusiastic and seemed to accept the material rather well!

During the class I explained the basic concepts of TRIZ, how they have been adapted to business and management, and how the TRIZ approach to solving non-standard problems can be used within the business and management context to drastically shorten problem solving time and increase quality of new ideas and solutions.

During the last hour we took a challenge from the class to run a case. One of the participants explained a problem his company faced in the past. The group started to apply TRIZ and a number of solution directions were proposed by the participants. The problem owner was fascinated to see how the group managed to find a successful solution within 15 minutes while he spent half a year to come up with the same solution.

Thanks Alexander Sorokoumoff, Julia Sushkova, and Startup Technologies Ltd. for organizing and hosting the event.

A more extended 3-day hands-on course on TRIZ for Business and Management is scheduled for July 29-31 in Minsk: http://www.xtriz.com/Training/TRIZBM_3Days_ru.htm (all in Russian)

Workshop on ZIRT: Reverse TRIZ for Innovation-Based Marketing

On May 14 I delivered the workshop "Innovation-Based Marketing" under the roof of TIAS Business School at Brainport Development in Eindhoven  for a group of CEOs and owners of high-tech companies targeted at growth as next OEM. If TRIZ focuses on finding a solution to a problem, ZIRT (guess what is in the name?) focuses on finding problems to a solution. Once a company developed and commercialized an innovative technology, the question emerges: where else the technology can be used?

A subject of special interest are application areas which reside far away from the original application area the technology was designed for. I have been involved to the development of ZIRT due to numerous requests of my customer. At the workshop in Eindhoven ZIRT approach helped two companies to discover a number of new and unexpected application domains for their technologies which can lead to developing new products for the mass market.

More workshop for other companies participating in the program are scheduled.

Authors of TRIZFest 2014 in Prague

The full list of authors whose paper abstracts were accepted for preparing full papers for TRIZFest 2014 Conference to be held  in Prague, Czech Republic on September 4-6, 2014 is available at http://matriz.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/TRIZfest-2014-Accepted-Authors-Eng.pdf

Webcast on TRIZ from TiasNimbas Business School

On February 21, 2014 me and Hans van Grieken (adjunct professor of TiasNimbas Business School and Vice-President on Business Innovation at Capgemini) participated at 30-minutes introductory video webcast on TRIZ and Systematic Innovation.

Full webcast recording is available by clicking on the picture below or at http://newlearningcontent.tiasnimbas.edu/Mediasite/Play/2d8fb3dd444c42dfbecbfc7728ecc7b71d

Schedule of Public Courses for Spring-Summer 2014

• Basic TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering: 2-day public certification training (MATRIZ certification level 1). April 2-3, 2014, Utrecht, Netherlands.
• Advanced TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering: 5-day   public certification training (MATRIZ certification level 2). May 19-23, 2014, Enschede, Netherlands.
• Business and Management Problem Solving with TRIZ: 2-day public certification training(MATRIZ certification level 1). March 6-7, 2014, Utrecht, Netherlands.
• Root Conflict Analysis (RCA+) and Value Conflict Mapping: Two one-day public certification training. June 4-5, 2014, Utrecht, Netherlands.
• Systematic Creative Imagination Development: One-day public certification training. April 30, 2014, Utrecht, Netherlands.
• Systematic Business Model Innovation: One-day public certification training. May 7, 2014, Utrecht, Netherlands.
• "TRIZ Fundamentals" Two-week (80 hours) in-depth Summer Course and certification (MATRIZ certification level 2, University of Twente certificate, 3 European Credits) July 7-18, 2014, Enschede, Netherlands.

Most of certification training programs are available through online training as well.
More information: http://www.xtriz.com/Training/

MATRIZ Certification in TRIZ Levels 1-3

On January 30, 2014 I became a member of MATRIZ Council on Expertise and Methodology (MATRIZ CEM) and was accredited by MATRIZ to perform certification of MATRIZ Levels 1-3.

Currently MATRIZ system is recognized as most distributed and credible TRIZ certification system worldwide. There are two ways to receive MATRIZ certification: either to participate in TRIZ certification training delivered by me (public, corporate or online) or to pass certification exam.

Event: Two-week “TRIZ Fundamentals” Summer Course 2014 in July 2014

The two-week (80 hours) full-immersion “TRIZ Fundamentals” Summer Course 2014 will be delivered in association with the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands on July 7-18, 2014.

The course focuses on in-depth coverage of TRIZ underlying background and extensive practice with its basic and advanced tools. The course format provides immersive experience with learning TRIZ by practicing on real cases.

The course is intended for B.Sc and M.Sc students and industry professionals. Successful accomplishment of the course is awarded by certificates of the University of Twente and the International TRIZ Association MATRIZ.

The number of seats is limited and the course tends to be filled in very quickly after announcement, therefore we ask you to contact me as soon as possible if you are interested in participating.
More information on the course, some video impressions and the course brochure and program can be found at: http://www.xtriz.com/summercourse.htm

Some photos from the course last year:

MATRIZ Worldwide Conference TRIZFest 2014

The 10th MATRIZ International Conference TRIZFest 2014 will be held on September 4-6, 2014 in Prague, Czech Republic.

To present at the conference, authors should submit an abstract of a paper planned for presentation before March 09, 2014. An abstract should fit 0.5-2 pages of A4 format. All abstracts, papers and presentations must be in English.

More information is available at www.triz-event.com and www.matriz.com

Courses on Root Conflict Analysis (RCA+) and Value-Conflict Mapping (VCM) in Munich, Germany

On November 4-5, 2013 I I performed a course on hands-on applications of two relatively new TRIZ techniques which can be used at an analytical stage of a TRIZ Process: RCA+ and VCM. The course was organized by the TRIZ Campus and supported and hosted by General Electric Global Research in Munich, Germany.

Root Conflict Analysis (RCA+) helps with managing complexity of a specific innovative problem by identifying a set of contradictions that contribute to the problem and establishing relationships between these contradictions. As a result we obtain an accurate problem formulation directly in the form of interrelated contradictions.

Value-Conflict Mapping (VCM) is a strategy-defining tool which helps to develop a map which establishes and structures relationships between all types of so-called “blocking” contradictions which should be resolved within short and long terms to develop a system or a product further. VCM was designed to define contradictions that emerge between market, technology and business demands.

The audience accepted both tools rather well, and intensive practice during two days helped to dive deep to the techniques. The feedback I got would definitely help me to work on further enhancements of both techniques.

ETRIA World Conference TRIZ Future 2013

ETRIA’s TRIZ Future Conference 2013 took place in Paris, France on October 29-31, 2013. The event was organized by the Ecole Nationale d'Arts et Métiers (Arts & Métiers ParisTech) of Paris; ETRIA - The European TRIZ association; and was sponsored by CIRP, the international Academy for Production Engineering.

The conference gathered about 140 registered participants from many different countries. The event was pretty intensive: it featured 3 tutorials and 79 presentations in total including keynote talks and presentations at plenary sessions.

To help with relaxing a bit a very intensive 3-day program, the organizers provided top-notch lunches demonstrating fantastic flavours of French cousine, and the conference dinner was organized during a boat trip on Siene river to enjoy the lights of Paris at night.

Although the conference fee was a bit high this year (Paris has never been an inexpensive city), still the conference attracted a lot of people from both academia and industry, and I could clearly observe increase of interest in TRIZ from academia.

The next ETRIA TRIZ Future Conference will be organized on October 29-31, 2014 in Lausanne, Switzerland. See more details to come at www.etria.eu

Fall 2013: Basic and Advanced TRIZ Training and Certification for Technology and Engineering

Two public training and certification courses on TRIZ for Technology and Engineering are scheduled for Fall 2013:

1. September 24-25, 2013: 2-day Basic TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering: http://www.xtriz.com/Training/technology.htm
2. October 21-25, 2013: 5-day Advanced TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering: http://www.xtriz.com/Training/technologyAdvanced.htm

More information on our courses: http://www.xtriz.com/Training/

Systematic Business Model Innovation: September 18, 2013

The TRIZ way of thinking and solving innovative problems has been expanding to other areas besides technology and engineering. Recently we introduced a new approach for systematic business model innovation based on combination of several TRIZ tools for identifying and solving challenges to obtain innovative solutions for business models and business systems for virtually every business domain: from technology to banking and insurance.

This approach will be explained and practiced at my next training workshop "Systematic Business Model Innovation" which is scheduled for September 18, 2013 in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
More information is available at:

http://www.xtriz.com/Training/systematicbusinessmodelinnovation.htm

Now TRIZ Master

On August 3, 2013 during the TRIZFest 2013 Conference in Kiev I was awarded the official degree "TRIZ Master" by the decision of MATRIZ for my contribution to the development of TRIZ, TRIZ-related publications and practical experience. It was a very pleasant experience. The degree of TRIZ Master corresponds to the top level in the certification system by MATRIZ (level 5).

Besides me two more persons were awarded the TRIZ Master degree on merits: Jun-Young Lee from Samsung Electronics and Victor Menaker. Two other persons, Alexander Medvedev and Natalia Rubina successfully defended their TRIZ Master theses.

TRIZFest 2013 in Kiev

On August 1-3, 2013 I took part in the TRIZFest 2013 International Conference in Kiev, Ukraine organized by the International TRIZ Association MATRIZ. The conference program was quite filled with different kinds of events: pre-conference workshops and TRIZ Developers Summit, about 30 paper presentations, a meeting of the TRIZ Dissertations Council with TRIZ Master theses defense, and finally MATRIZ Congress with reports delivered by key MATRIZ officers and new decisions making regarding MATRIZ and TRIZFest conferences. About 80 visitors from over 20 countries attended the event.