This Month’s Meeting: Program Manager:Patrick Wegerson
Topic:TRIZ--How can the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving help Software and Systems Development
Speaker: Dr. Ellen Domb, President The PQR Group
In the past, project managers have consciously avoided all kinds of "creativity" on projects, in the belief that creative problem solutions increase the risk of project failure, since "creativity" has had the reputation for being wild, uncontrolled, undisciplined generation of new ideas that were of limited (or no!) practicality. So they were right-creativity was a danger to the project. But creativity can be managed. It can be focused. And it can be the reason that the project succeeds.
TRIZ is a problem solving method that accelerates the project team's ability to solve these risk-creating problems (Tate and Domb 1997). "TRIZ" is the acronym in Russian for "Theory of Inventive Problem Solving." It is now an international science of creativity that relies on the study of the patterns of problems and solutions, not on the spontaneous creativity of individuals or groups. Over 2.8 million patents have been analyzed to discover the patterns that predict breakthrough solutions to technical problems. TRIZ research began with the hypothesis that there are universal principles of invention that are the basis for creative innovations that advance technology, and that if these principles could be identified and codified, they could be taught to people to make the process of invention more predictable. The research has proceeded in several stages over the last 50 years. Much of the practice of TRIZ consists of learning these repeating patterns of problems-solutions and patterns of technical evolution, and methods of using scientific effects, and applying the general TRIZ patterns to the specific situation that confronts the developer.
Join Dr. Domb and TwinSPIN for this intriguing and educational hands-on introduction to using some of the tools and techniques of TRIZ for software and systems development.Dr. Ellen Domb Bio:
Ellen Domb is the President of The PQR Group (http://www.triz-journal.com/domb/about.htm), a consulting firm specializing in helping organizations maximize customer satisfaction, productivity and profits through strategic management of quality and technology. She has been a Director of the Aerojet Electronic Systems Division with specific responsibility for Total Quality Management implementation. She guided Aerojet and many of its suppliers in developing and using systems to improve the quality of their processes, products and services, shorten development time for new products and services, and achieve dramatic increases in customer satisfaction through continuous process improvement.
Dr. Domb's academic background ranges from Stanford University's Executive Management Program to a Ph.D. in physics from Temple University and a bachelor's degree from MIT. She is a founding board member and Judge for the California Council on Quality and Service. She is a charter member of the Quality Function Deployment Institute, co-founder of The TRIZ Institute, and editor of The TRIZ Journal, http://www.triz-journal.com.
Dr. Domb speaks frequently to business and professional groups on the impact of TQM on organizations and on accelerating new product development using TRIZ and quality function deployment. She is an instructor for San Diego State University, The Claremont Graduate School, George Washington University, GOAL/QPC, and The American Supplier Institute. She is the co-author of Beyond Strategic Vision, Strategic Planning that Makes Things Happen, Management Readings in TQM, Developing Your Concurrent Engineering Plan, The Voice of the Customer: Find it! Use it! and of courses and papers on the applications of quality function deployment and TRIZ
Abstract: Technical risk is one leading threat to the cost and schedule targets of new product development projects. Whether the "product" is a physical product, and information technology system, a service, a new business concept, or a hybrid of these, the technical risks frequently become apparent late in development, in areas that were difficult to analyze or simulate early in the project.
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