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Triz for services

Updated : January 2023.

TRIZ is a method devised by a Russian engineer before the fall of the Berlin Wall and popularized since, particularly in industry. In South Korea, for instance, TRIZ is regarded as a key driver of innovation value creation; some argue that Samsung would not be what it is today without having decisively adopted this approach at scale. This article sets out to adapt this method of generating and structuring innovation ideas to the world of services.

The fundamentals of TRIZ

The name reveals little about the method, unless you speak Russian and can decode the acronym. And even then, "theory of inventive problem solving" remains somewhat opaque. Yet it is a hands-on approach that has produced very tangible results. It draws on the analysis of several tens of thousands of patents, a body of work that surfaced reproducible innovation patterns. The idea is to test those patterns — or innovation scenarios — once the topic under study has been identified, refined, and described (the TRIZ way), in order to generate new lines of investigation.

An application example in publishing

Since one example beats a thousand theories, here is a step-by-step operational walkthrough of the method applied to a book publisher. One key success factor is the precision with which the preliminary phase of describing and focusing the study topic is carried out, before testing proven innovation patterns. Accordingly, in the walkthrough that follows, 6 of the 7 steps are dedicated to this analysis, with the 7th and final step devoted to testing the scenarios.

1. Describe the general field of investigation for the innovation sought

How can the success of a book be anticipated while it is still being written, or even earlier? What new mechanism could eliminate programmed flops and improve the hit rate, without relying solely on editors' instincts?

2. Describe the "positive constraints" of the innovation sought

By positive constraint, we mean a specification that restricts the field of possibilities while simultaneously stimulating creativity. What Navi Radjou calls, in his books, a frugal approach to innovation. Here we choose the following set of constraints:

  • electronic format to save paper (whose price is subject to wide variation);

  • Kobo, Kindle, or other popular and reputedly ergonomic e-reader formats (a call to a witness panel can help qualify what counts as a reputedly ergonomic e-reader);

  • reasonable size expressed in MB (so no Proustian saga);

  • no waiting time for the reader when turning pages;

  • no errors, neither spelling nor typography;

  • automated delivery to the reader-buyer;

  • long-term maintenance — the book is treated as a piece of software, benefiting from improved new releases such as translations into new languages, evolution of aesthetics and illustrations, support for new formats, and a constantly increased reading comfort.

3. What risk level?

TRIZ for services places great importance on early awareness of the risk being taken on. Being lucid about risk-taking as early as possible is a decisive success factor. Each innovation project therefore has an optimal risk level, depending — among other things — on the environment, the maturity of the techniques, processes, devices, or skills mobilized. To assess it, the foundational TRIZ concept is the contradiction. Just as a potential difference between two metal spheres, one charged positively and the other negatively, constitutes an energy reserve, so a contradiction between two simultaneously (apparently) true statements in the context of the envisaged innovation represents a potential for targeted innovation. Here, the identified contradictions are as follows:

  • the hope of releasing a best-seller is in contradiction with the still modest size of the e-book market in the target countries;

  • with the minimal aesthetics of e-books, insufficient to generate appeal comparable to a traditional book cover;

  • with the profusion of new titles appearing each week;

  • and with the limitations in terms of the number of colours available on the most common e-readers (again the appeal problem).

These four contradictions, as they stand, generate a sense of high risk. The higher the risk, the greater the innovation potential. The task now is to pivot sufficiently — that is, to change tack on both the objective and the conditions under which it can be reached (business model, nature of the product or service, target market, to name only a few levers) — until the risk taken is reduced as far as possible. As a trend, zero risk thus corresponds to the ultimate innovation.

4. Scenario building

At this stage, TRIZ for services prioritizes considering scenarios that help reduce the risk level induced by the contradictions. If these contradictions are not sufficiently compelling for the decision-makers involved, it may be useful to extrapolate them into concrete consequences. Once the decision-makers or co-creation workshop participants are convinced, the work of pivoting begins. Whereas a now-classic approach such as a Sprint, Voice of the Customer, or Hackathon allows participants to pivot 5 to 10 times in the best case — and only if their collective intelligence is particularly effective — TRIZ for services works on a scale roughly ten times larger, typically triggering several dozen pivots over a one-day session. The result is a drastically reduced risk level and potentially huge savings of time and money during the first funding rounds. The notorious 2-out-of-10 success rate can thus be flipped and start flirting with 8 out of 10. In the situation at hand, one example of a post-pivot scenario could be releasing podcasts ahead of the books themselves, the books being published only if the first format presented to the market met with success and generated reader expectation. The market is expanding, the aesthetics are judged less problematic, and the number of titles produced by professionals is deemed manageable. Another scenario could involve observing how a video stream is received on a platform before potentially publishing the book.

5. Functional decomposition

TRIZ for services then moves on to a Prévert-style enumeration of the functions needed for the innovation to work. This tedious but vital exercise aims to leave nothing out and, above all, to iterate until the number and complexity of functions are minimized. The complexity of the interactions between functions, on the other hand, can be high — provided it does not foreclose the service's prospects for evolution. Here, the system must be able to :

  • produce, distribute, and promote podcasts;

  • the same for videos;

  • and the same for e-books, where applicable.

The links between these functions need to be analyzed: this is where the lasting value of the innovation lies.

6. Second round of pivots

A mapping table is maintained between the functions and their interactions on one side, and the residual risk levels tied to residual contradictions on the other. The idea is to keep pivoting as long as the residual risk level for a function or for an inter-function interaction remains too high compared to what decision-makers or workshop participants are willing to accept. Here, successive pivots could include:

  • automating part of the process via the introduction of AI — notably text refinement, voice generation, and the detection of high points (emotional peaks);

  • price tiers scaling with production quality (corresponding, for example, to decreasing levels of automation, or vice versa);

  • adding interactivity to the entry media (podcast and video), with an improved pause function;

  • variability in the formats of entry media;

  • new inter-function links (a parallel between emotional-peak testers and paying audience, before eventual convergence);

  • patterns of emotion generation (sequences, surprises, leitmotifs, recognition, learning, simplicity, self-evidence);

  • characterizing the irresistibility of a teaser;

  • thematic specialization (for example, Stendhalian romantic crystallization);

  • segmentation into sub-products and services;

  • and so on.

7. The 7-principles check-list

TRIZ documents 40 patterns drawn from the analysis of a large body of patents. TRIZ for services considers another 7 patterns, derived not from patent analysis but from the hands-on practice of facilitating co-creation workshops in an entrepreneurial, innovation-driven context:

  • (1) each function and each inter-function link is mapped to a valued data item — the text-refinement function corresponds to a source text, the podcast-production function corresponds to an mp3 file, and so on; the data items are valued and form the basis of the service's economic model; one or more iterations are run until the whole is consistent (number and intensity of contradictions reduced to a minimum) and generates a margin in line with expectations;

  • (2) the solution is simplified down to the minimum level of appeal felt by a panel, then complexity is added back along the axis of greatest perceived value;

  • (3) the application of innovative business models proven in other contexts is tested — example: multi-sided platforms;

  • (4) the interactions between the actors involved (authors, readers, listeners, publishers, producers, distributors, broadcasters, regulators) are simulated, identifying their respective interests and notably the points where interests converge;

  • (5) the disappearance of the offering is simulated by computing its forecast lifespan; from this, additional constraints are derived, such as carbon footprint or recyclability of components (especially if there is packaging of any kind or derivative products);

  • (6) the offering's usage rate over a typical day is computed, with the aim of maximizing it while respecting the constraints from the previous point (including social impact);

  • (7) a worst-case scenario is simulated — everything goes wrong — and from this, preventive mechanisms are derived and embedded in the service's design.

Pivot from the third step onwards

The leitmotif of this 7-step approach is an obsession with pivoting. It is all the more effective when good pivots happen as early as possible — that is, before fuel has been burned, in both time and money, to build an operational solution. Pivoting an existing service is in fact far costlier than pivoting its concept on paper.

A heavy trend

Just as Lean first flourished in factories before being adapted to the service sector and to the cross-functional layers of organizations, TRIZ is now following the same trajectory with TRIZ for services. We can anticipate that the success rate of innovation initiatives will improve, notably thanks to the deployment of such an approach. TRIZ for services may well become the decisive maturation factor of an innovative era, following on from the industrial, communication, and information-sharing eras.

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