September 2020 Seminar: TRIZ and how it can be applied to Knowledge and Information Management

Summary

This meeting introduced the little-known methodology with Russian origins, called TRIZ. Patterns that were uncovered while delving deep into the patents database during work in Russia revealed around 100 concepts, principles, and strategies that they believe will help to solve any problem. Ron has extensive experience using TRIZ in a huge range of different situations and brought his passion and expertise to pull together some fascinating examples of TRIZ being used in practical situations.  After we had absorbed all the ideas he was explaining, we had wonderful networking sessions to discuss what might be relevant to our own work situations.  Audience members left eager to see what they would apply on Monday morning, where Ron had assured us would have the capacity to think like a genius! It was a lively and productive session and even if we fail to deliver at genius level, we had certainly gained fascinating insights into a more systematic way of looking at the problem solving needed for complex situations.

Speaker

Ron Donaldson is a freelance Knowledge Ecologist. Ron has a strong environmental background that includes 21 years with English Nature and an Honours Degree in Combined Sciences.

Beginning his career in systems and process improvement he was drawn towards the anthropological, people and community aspects of knowledge management within which he gained quite a high profile speaking (and facilitating workshops) about the application of story telling and complexity thinking.

He now takes an ecological view of organisational change by placing emphasis on communities and the knowledge and ideas that flow within and between them. His approach to facilitation then creates the conditions for revealing and self-realising the sense made of the stories being told. All of this is done with a deep understanding of the unpredictable nature of complex systems and some of the latest thinking in the Cognitive Sciences.

In the last 10 years as a self-employed knowledge ecologist he has absorbed methods and ideas from an even wider range of disciplines from problem solving to open innovation design thinking, collaborative community building through to using narrative frameworks to communicate complex ideas.

He believes his strongest asset is having a foot in, and being accepted by, several very different networks, from environmental story tellers, engineers, conservationists and groups working for social change, and in doing so identifying and transferring the best insights between them.

Ron introduced us to the basic principles and insights behind TRIZ and then shared with us a couple of techniques for us to familiarize ourselves and apply during the syndicate session.

Time and Venue

30th September 2020 2:30pm on the Zoom platform. This is a virtual session.

Slides

Will be made available to members soon

Tweets

#netikx105

Blog

See our blog report: TRIZ

Study Suggestions

Study suggestions : It has already been mentioned but the most important area of study is the Oxford Creativity website at : https://www.triz.co.uk
This contains a cornucopia of information and resources and educational material, much of which is free of charge.
Other sites which carry selective examples of the TRIZ methodology are :
http://www.triz40.com/aff_Principles_TRIZ.php

http://www.triz40.com/aff_Matrix_TRIZ.php

The following paperbacks explain TRIZ in detail :
TRIZ for Engineers : Enabling Inventive Problem Solving by Karen Gadd.
Wiley, 2011. ISBN 978-0470741887. This is also available in a Kindle Edition.

TRIZ for Dummies by Lilly Haines-Gadd. For Dummies, 2016.
ISBN 978-1119107477. This is also available in a Kindle Edition and as an Audiobook.

Rob Rosset 13/10/2020