Size-Time-Cost Operator

From TRIZ, developed by Genrich Altshuller (Creativity as an Exact Science, 1979).

Pushes a design's size, time, or cost to zero and then to infinity in imagination, exposing hidden assumptions and resources that point to a way through a contradiction.

When to reach for it

When a design problem is stuck on a contradiction and the current system's dimensions feel inevitable.

How it runs

1. State the contradiction or design challenge.
2. Pick a parameter: size, time, or cost.
3. Imagine it at zero, and describe what happens.
4. Imagine it at infinity, and do the same.
5. Note the assumptions and resources that surface.
6. Carry those back to the real problem.

Where it sits in SOLVE eX

• 4.2 Expansive Idea Formation
• 4.4 Refining Ideas Into Practical Solutions

Go to the source

• Creativity as an Exact Science, Tvorchestvo kak tochnaya nauka, Moscow; English translation Gordon and Breach, 1984, 1979