Comment on Comment of Ellen Domb (August 29, 2008)

Dear Ellen.
I am very sorry for so long delay with my reaction. As you knows I prefer customers with complex interdisciplinary problematic situations and long term relationships with them. This helps me to carry out my research and Develop OTSM further. And it is useful for my customers to improve their product services and strategy. Bad news here is that those projects involve me completely and I have not so much time to maintain my blog. I like a lot this way of communication But…. See above…
A few words on your wonderful comment:

I have partially reacted it in my comment to Anonymous (April 29, 2009) – ego of professionals that usually cover their genetic fear.

Here I would like to say that
my perception of Classical TRIZ, that I obtain from learning Classical TRIZ directly from Genrich Altshuller during 15 years of our cooperation, is very different from most of world wide TRIZ community (most of Russian TRIZ experts included).
According Altshuller TRIZ is not a method to solve typical inventive problems but it is tool to create appropriate method for solving nontypical problems that do not have any typical solution yet. Unfortunately many people consider TRIZ as a tool for solving typical problems because of lot of solutions already was discovered and organized in certain system by Altshuller. Some of TRIZ tools work in this way perfectly in the hands of professionals. But this is just a part of toolbox creqated by Altshuller and based on Classical TRIZ.
In my mind TRIZ is not method to handle problematic situation that could not be solved by typical solutions known for professional or TRIZ-experts. Yes ARIZ do work wonderful if people dedicate enough time to study it carefully.
Altshuller considered TRIZ as theoretical approach, tool to create tools for problem solving whenever we need them. And as my experience show if people do learn Classical TRIZ in this way they do develop a very good additional tools for certain particular needs or general tools for dealing with complex problems. Altshuller’s ARIZ 85-C is perfectly done for situations that contain dozen contradictions. If the problematic situation consists of hundred sub problems then in addition to ARIZ and other tools of the Classical TRIZ better apply OTSM Problem Flow Networks approach. Some of my students use TRIZ in this way.

Taking into account all above I can see that the method you describe in your comment is one of the tools that appear by using Inversion principle to some of known tools. This is too much unusual for many people and that is why they refuse it. However it is a rule of ARIZ related to Intensification and exaggeration technique. When we exaggerate situation so much that it seems we put up side down and many people afraid even think of this. But those who able to overcome their fear could benefit a lot.

In ARIZ 77 Altshuller introduced step that propose to solve inverse problem. This step was in the part till ARIZ -85-B. However Altshuller remove that part because of he consider that this part should appear as a special Algorithm that must be developed and used to pose the right problem in the right form and then start to use ARIZ 85-C. For many reasons he did not develop that algorithm and this step about inversion of the problematic situation disappear for TRIZ newcomers as well as many other useful instruments that was never translated yet into English. So the most advanced people have to discover them by themselves.

It was one of Altshuller’s projects he propose me in the end of 80s. To write comments on the TRIZ evolution and instruments that were created based on TRIZ. But the key point of the idea was to observe past of TRIZ evolution (stage 1 - as a method; stage 2 - as an algorithm; stage 3 - as a theory) as an evolution of General theory of Powerful thinking (OTSM is a Russian acronym for this). He leaded the TRIZ evolution to this target – and it was interesting to see which tool and ideas appear and survive and what ideas disappear and why. We have discussed with him a lot of those things. I am still working on this subject. But it is too much difficult to write all of those all along. I am looking for support to this project and for enthusiastic people who are interested to take part in this project. One of difficulties I have faced on this way is that those who learn TRIZ recently by using old books have a problem with using TRIZ terminology. Because of the terminology was changed sufficiently since the book Algorithm Of Innovation was published first in 1968. In additional appear lot of misinterpretations in translation of original papers on TRIZ. As a result it seems to me that I speak with my partners about absolutely different things. Even so they name this TRIZ and use TRIZ terminology…
But this is another story for my blog.