From TRIZ, developed by Genrich Altshuller (Creativity as an Exact Science, 1979), and restated by Darrell Mann (Hands-On Systematic Innovation, 2002).
Pictures the function delivered with no system at all, then works back toward that ideal to find designs that use existing resources or remove the need entirely.
When to reach for it
When incremental improvement of a design seems exhausted and the current architecture is being taken for granted.
How it runs
- State the main useful function the system delivers.
- State the ideal: the function arrives with no system.
- Ask which resources already present could supply it.
- Ask whether the function could become unnecessary.
- Ask whether the system could act on itself.
- Sketch solutions that move toward the ideal.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- Creativity as an Exact Science, Russian original 1979; English edition Gordon and Breach, 1984, 1979
- Hands-On Systematic Innovation, CREAX Press, 2002