5o Congreso Iberoamericano de Inovación Tecnológica Puebla. Pue., del 1 a 3 de diciembre de 2010

inusuales de una situación del problema. Los resultados innovadores se alcanzan usando las herramientas diseñadas (y su modelo OAF) para sacar contribuciones complementarias de ambos hemisferios cerebrales, generando conceptos lógicos y creativos. Esta apreciación global da el alcance total del USIT pero no en su profundidad. Sin embargo, resolviendo problemas conceptuales, se comprenden las herramientas descriptas aquí. Faltan ejemplos en profundidad y sus discusiones. No es la intención de este trabajo recavar en profundidad.

Referencias [1] Ed. Sickafus, “Unified Structured Inventive Thinking – How to Invent”, Ntelleck, LLC, Grosse Ile, MI, USA, ISBN 0-965-94350-X. (www.u-sit.net) [2] Ed. Sickafus “Unified Structured Inventive Thinking – an Overview”, Ntelleck, LLC, Grosse Ile, MI, USA, libro electrónico (www.u-sit.net). [3] R.A. Finke, T.B. Ward, and S.M. Smith, “Creative Cognition – Theory, Research, and Applications”, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1992. [4] Ed. Sickafus, “Heuristic Innovation”- Ntelleck, LLC, Grosse Ile, MI, USA, ISBN 0965-9435-2-6 (www.u-sit.net) [5] Ed Sickafus “Causes = Effects?” Ntelleck, LLC, Grosse Ile, MI, USA (734) 6763594 [email protected], www.u-sit.net y Triz journal [6] Ed Sickafus “Heuristics for solving technical problems” Ntelleck, LLC, Grosse Ile, MI, USA (734) 676-3594 [email protected], www.u-sit.net y Triz journal

Acerca de los autores Juan Carlos Nishiyama es Consultor en Organización e Ingeniería Industrial en el Centro Tecnológico de la Universidad Tecnológica Nacional Facultad Regional General Pacheco (UTN FRGP) y Gerente de Ingeniería en empresas privadas en Argentina. [email protected] Tatiana Zagorodnova es Licenciada en Organización Industrial de la UTN FRGP y se desempeña en al ámbito empresarial privado en Argentina. [email protected] Carlos Eduardo Requena es Profesor de Química en la Universidad Tecnológica Nacional Facultad Regional General Pacheco (UTN FRGP) y Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). Argentina [email protected]

BEYOND TRIZ: THE SCIENCE OFBUSINESS INNOVATION, THE SCIENCE OF INTANGIBLES 48

5o Congreso Iberoamericano de Inovación Tecnológica Puebla. Pue., del 1 a 3 de diciembre de 2010

Darrell Mann

Abstract TRIZ represents a comprehensive set of tools, methods and philosophies for generating breakthrough solutions. In addition, the ideality concept assists by defining good problems. In general terms, we know that everything evolves towards an Ideal Final Result destination. However, the traditional TRIZ toolkit is largely incapable of dealing with the inherent complexities of understanding specific customer behaviour, particularly in a world which is rapidly transitioning from tangible to intangible dominated customer drivers. A 10 year programme of research to fill in this gap in the innovation story has resulted in the development of the trenDNA methodology. The trenDNA methods are designed to permit a better understanding of population and consumption behaviour. Thus the method is designed to not just deliver innovative ideas and solutions but also to create customer-orientated marketing concepts. Currently, we are moving from an industrial society into a knowledge and communication society, influencing and changing our desires and behaviour, and also our markets. trenDNA gives answers to questions such as “Where can I innovate?” and “How could the product or service be improved in order to sustain the societal changes successfully?”. Questions which are already on the top of the priority list for many companies. Keywords: TRIZ, Systematic Innovation, Trends, Customer Behaviour

1. Introduction Even the most cursory of examinations of most successful products and services of recent times reveal some strange paradoxes. Why is it, for example, that the iPhone outsells every other competitor product containing the same or better technology and features? Why would someone pay three times the price for an American Fender guitar over a perfectly comparable Asia-manufactured equivalent? Why have millions of newcomers to the computer age started with a Wii? Why has Harry Potter been such a global phenomenon despite being rejected by just about every major publisher at the beginning of his journey? Why do we buy branded goods from the supermarket when the private label equivalents do the job just as well? The answer is intangibles. Every scientist, designer and creator on the planet knows how to create perfectly competent products and services within their industry. There are tools and methods in place that allow for rapid development of a new anything. Sony is able to release a new product onto the market about every twenty minutes thanks to the processes they have developed and matured over the last three decades, and yet they still found themselves totally out-flanked by Apple. And all because Apple has learned about the value of intangibles. And how to consistently design for them. For everyone else it seems, ‘design for intangibles’ is more about random Eureka moments than any kind of reproducible process.

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Figure 1: Some examples of recent ‘wow’ products and services.

2. Intangibles Whether it’s a consumer buying a phone, a clinician selecting a course of therapy for a patient, or a B2B transaction for a hundredweight of gravel, people don’t just buy products and services anymore. They’re looking for something else. People spend their money on things for two reasons – the good reason and the real reason. Being able to send emails from the train is a good reason for buying an iPhone; looking like the coolest dude in the carriage while you’re doing it is the real reason. The real reasons people spend their money are about ‘cool’ or ‘peace of mind’, a ‘reward’ or the desire to ‘look good’ in the eyes of their boss, These are the intangibles. And now is the time to start learning how to systematically design products and services to deliver them. Many management gurus have talked about the need to deliver ‘wows’, ‘exciters’ and ‘insanely great’ solutions, but none have any sensible suggestions as to how organisations might set about delivering them. Study enough examples of intangiblesdesign, however, and it becomes clear that there is a formula. Admittedly it has taken us ten years and close to half a million examples to work out what it is, but thankfully, now, after spending the last five years testing our findings on real client projects, we have been able to publish our findings. Design-for-Intangibles is now a science. That science is trenDNA. The methods of the trenDNA are designed to permit a better understanding of population and consumption behaviour. trenDNA gives answers to questions such as “how can I create a got-to-have-it, wow solution for my customers?” “Where can I innovate?”, “How should my current productsand services evolve in order to best match shifts in customer behaviour?” “What is the best way to present my new offerings to my customers?” Those questions are on the top of the priority list and becoming more and more important for leaders in nearly every company. But there are also bigger questions, questions that traditionally we never even think of asking. Questions like, “is it possible to see market trends that haven’t started yet?” Or, “can we deliberately create our own ‘insanely great’ solution?” 50

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trenDNA operates on a five intertwined levels. At the core level are the elements of a customer need that may be thought of as ‘absolutes’. These are factors that lay at the heart of the our three million data-point Systematic Innovation methodology, namely Function and Perfection. Any innovation attempt that fails to deliver the required functions (both tangible and intangible) and at a level of ideality greater than currently available solutions, is bound to fail. Beyond these ‘absolutes’, trenDNA adds four more layers, of descending degree of specificity that are intended to help users to take into account a progressively broader range of factors that may come to influence customer behaviour.The second of the trenDNA levels concerns ‘inevitables’ and comes from a comprehensive programme of research to unravel the intricacies and complexities of generational archetypes and universal (Spiral Dynamic) thinking modes. This is the level that effectively defines the DNA of business, consumer and market trends.

Figure 2: Levels of TrenDNA

All trends, the research suggests emerge from these generational and thinking styles. The English version of trenDNA included the top 160 consumer and market trends for typical ‘Western’ societies. Each of these trends has been related back to the underpinning DNA. The importance of this connection is that, in addition to being able to use the current trends to define the positioning of a new product or service, it is possible to make objective predictions about trends that have not appeared yet. Consequently, the resulting trend cards and underpinning DNA have been shown to deliver a significant leap forward in the ability of organisations to increase their innovation success rate. Most traditional innovation attempts fail because of a failure to understand the prevailing needs of the customer. The way to breakthrough innovation almost invariably involves the idea of “thinking outside the box” – like the proverb “looking over the edge of the plate”. The question is “In which direction should we be look?” The trenDNA methodologyis designed to provide objective, repeatable answers– partly through the trend cards, but more ultimately through the contradictions between trends. This may just be the single most critical insight from all of the trenDNA research. Almost every large organisation already spends significant resources collecting trend information, but rarely does this information lead to breakthrough solutions. Our finding is that it is not so much the 51

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trends themselves as the conflicts between trends that direct and determine ‘wow’ innovation success.

3. trenDNA Process The trenDNA application journey starts at the overview of the process with the project definition (step 0) and leads into a six-step circle. Within this circular process are two inner circles. The first of which is a place for recording solution ‘clues’ and the second, most central, defining a place in which the clues are transformed into actual solution concepts. Each of the six process steps is designed to allow users to generate as many possible clues and opportunities as possible. Again, consistent with any complex system, our chances of success are highest when we are able to gather and then combine as many clues as possible. Crucially when dealing with any complex problem, the systematic process of revealing breakthrough insights, opportunities and solutions comes from a succession of ‘clue-gathering’ activities, rather than from any kind of linear, step-wise process out of which answers appear, sausage-like from the end of a pipeline. Complex problems demand tools and methods capable of managing the complexity rather than trying to pretend it isn’t there. The TrenDNA job is akin, in other words, to systemising the sleuthing skills of Sherlock Holmes and making them available to everyone.

Figure 3: The TrenDNA Process

4. Application ofTrend Cards and Utilization of Synergies One of the steps of the trenDNA process involves use of the 160 trend cards. These cards can be seen as a series of signposts in an innovation project. Each card describes an important consumer, market or business trend. Additionally, on the back of each 52

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card, each trend is analyzed in terms of connections and contradictions to other trends. Herein, very often, lies the biggest innovation potential: breakthroughs happen when an innovation resolves one or more trend conflicts. Users can find relevant conflicts through a variety of manes. The simplest of which involves selecting a single trend known to be important in a given customer scenario, and then looking on the back of the card for other trends that are in conflict. The more scientific approach to identifying the trend conflicts involves mapping the relationships between multiple trends.

Figure 4: Examples of TrenDNA Cards

In the ultimate case, this might mean mapping the relationships between all of the trends as shown here:

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Figure 5: The TrenDNA Network

5. Conclusion The trenDNA toolkit supports the process to discover ‘white spaces’ and to gain a better understanding about society and consumer behaviours in order to meet usually unspoken customers requirements, needs and wants, and to find the most appropriate solution to a given innovation challenge.There are three basic, overlapping, factors that drive innovation success:

Figure 6: Innovation Success Driver Domains

The methods and strategies of the trenDNA describe a structured way by which companies can systematically create breakthrough innovations. In practice, normallythrougha combination of face-to-face hands-on workshops, the methods are explained and applied to practical examples. Second, the team works on a specific problem and systematically innovative ideas are generated which correspond to tangible and intangible customers needs and wants. Through trenDNA ‘new doors stand open’ for companies especially in the area of product development and marketing. While the tools of Systematic Innovation have been used mainly for technical questions, thanks to the emergence of our ‘Science of Intangibles’ they can be used for business as well. In today’s speed-of-light global economy, it is vital to solve complex questions and to gain new innovation impulse in order to become and remain one step ahead of current and emerging competitors. Innovation agility is becoming the key business success driver. Innovation, in turn, is all about asking and then answering the right questions. And predominantly, the right question is “what are the real (intangible) reasons someone should spend their hardearned money on my offering over the myriad other alternatives?” The Science of Intangibles is where the answers begin. Darrell Mann Systematic Innovation Bristol, UK Phone: +44 7980 864028 Fax: +44 1275 337509 [email protected] www.systematic-innovation.com

References: [1] D. Mann and Y. Özözer, TrenDNA:Understanding Populations Better Than They Understand Themselves. IFR Press, 2009. 54