Systematic inventive thinking

Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) is a thinking method developed in Israel in the mid-1990s. Derived from Genrich Altshuller’s TRIZ engineering discipline, SIT is a practical approach to creativity, innovation and problem solving, which has become a well known methodology for innovation.At the heart of SIT’s method is one core idea adopted from Genrich Altshuller's TRIZ which is also known as Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TIPS): that inventive solutions share common patterns. Focusing not on what makes inventive solutions different - but on what they share in common - is core to SIT’s approach. Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) is a thinking method developed in Israel in the mid-1990s. Derived from Genrich Altshuller’s TRIZ engineering discipline, SIT is a practical approach to creativity, innovation and problem solving, which has become a well known methodology for innovation.At the heart of SIT’s method is one core idea adopted from Genrich Altshuller's TRIZ which is also known as Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TIPS): that inventive solutions share common patterns. Focusing not on what makes inventive solutions different - but on what they share in common - is core to SIT’s approach. The thinking method led to the creation of an innovation company of the same name, Systematic Inventive Thinking (company). The company is headquartered in Tel Aviv with affiliates located around the world. SIT offers programs that help organizations develop the culture and practices through which innovation thrives. In these programs, SIT works to generate and implement ideas that are both innovative and practical. SIT helps organizations stay on top by developing a culture and practice of innovation. Change is supported in the long-term. At the core of the work is the idea that all innovations share common patterns. The method applies a series of creative constraints that leads one to think and act differently. SIT deals with two main areas of creativity: Ideation of new ideas, and problem solving.In the 1970s, researchers from the field of Cognitive Psychology established a quantitative yardstick for measuring creativity: the creative person was defined as someone with a large flow of ideas. A high rate of ideas per unit of time was considered an indication of creativity. This approach led to a series of methods for developing creativity based on the assumption that a quantitative increase of ideas will necessarily bring about a qualitative improvement. Such widely known methods as brainstorming, Synectics, random stimulation and lateral thinking (identified with Edward de Bono) can be traced to this approach. More recent studies reveal the appearance of a different approach. These studies show that the main difficulty faced by problem solvers is not generating a large quantity of ideas but coming up with original ones. The former parallel drawn between quantity and quality appears to no longer hold true. It was discovered that a large flow of ideas does not necessarily lead to the creation of original ones and further, that the very occupation with ordinary ideas may actually hamper creativity and innovative thought. These discoveries have prompted a new approach which holds that original and interesting results stem from organized thinking and structured processes rather than the random generation of ideas. One of the characteristics of organized thinking is a state of “low stimuli”, unencumbered by a large quantity of ideas. In this approach, originality replaces quantity as a dominant criterion.This organized or structured approach to idea generation is the starting point for Systematic Inventive Thinking. SIT is a descendant of the work of Genrich Altshuller, a Russian engineer who analyzed over 200,000 patents to identify the 40 common inventive principles of his unique formula, named TRIZ. Altshuller’s main discovery was that creative solutions incorporate an elimination of a conflict in the problem state. A conflict is a state where one parameter must be changed, in order to get some benefit, but changing that parameter causes a deterioration of another important parameter. Routine engineering design deals with this situation by searching for the 'best fit' compromise, a trade off that maximized the utility and minimizes the negative impact of a specific configuration of the variance of the available input parameters. Altshuller found that the engineering conflicts can be indexed according to the type of parameters involved (39 common engineering parameters were initially defined). Examining numerous inventions made it possible to assign each conflict with a set of possible hints or strategies on how to approach the solution to the problem. Three types of hints are used: principles, standards and physical effects. There are 40 principles; each help with defining high level strategies for solving the problem. There are 70 standards, which are more elaborated ideas based on collective past solutions. There is a knowledge base of approximately 400 physical effects ranging across physical, chemical and geometrical aspects, indexed according to the functions that each effect can carry out. During the 1970s, one of Altshuller's students, Ginadi Filkovsky, immigrated to Israel and joined the Open University in Tel Aviv. He began teaching TRIZ and adapting it to the needs of both Israeli and international hi-tech companies. A number of key academics were involved in this research. Two Ph.D. students, Jacob Goldenberg and Roni Horowitz, joined Filkovsky, focusing their research on developing and simplifying the methodology. Their work formed the basis of the SIT method as it exists today.Both TRIZ and SIT share a basic assumption - that one can study existing creative ideas in a field, identify common logical patterns in these ideas, translate the patterns into a set of Thinking Tools, and then apply these Thinking Tools to generate new creative ideas. In spite of the commonalties, SIT strongly differs from TRIZ in several important respects, having to do mainly with its practical application.