Introduction to Systematic Innovation
Spring 2014
Instructor Information
David Troness, MS
Office:
Phone: 480-280-7659
Email: david@troness.com
Office Hours
By appointment
Course Location and Meeting Times
Hybrid: online and Thursday 4:40 – 5:30 p.m.
Course Materials

Ball, Larry, and Collaborative Authors “TRIZ Power Tools,” March 2012 Edition, Entire series is
free and available online at: http://www.opensourcetriz.com

Additional required and recommended readings will be provided from:
o
Christensen, Clayton M., and Michael E. Raynor. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and
Sustaining Successful Growth. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2003.
o
Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause
Great Firms to Fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 1997.
o
Kim, W. Chan., and Renée Mauborgne. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create
Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. Boston, MA: Harvard
Business School, 2005.
o
May, Matthew E. The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation. New
York: Free, 2007. Print.
o
Silverstein, D., DeCarlo, N., & Slocum, M. (2008). Insourcing innovation: How to achieve
competitive excellence using TRIZ. New York: Auerbach Publications.
o
Ulwick, A. W. (2005). What customers want: Using outcome-driven innovation to create
breakthrough products and services. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Course Description
The Introduction to Systematic Innovation course introduces the latest thinking on perhaps the most
overused, misunderstood concept of the 21st century, i.e. “innovation”. After exposing many of the current
myths around innovation, the student will learn and practice a proven step-by-step algorithm for creating
high-probability innovations that can succeed in the marketplace. The course will arm the student with a
new level of skill that can be applied to technical problems as well as non-technical ones, e.g. business,
social, logistics, organizational, etc. Therefore, these skills can be a foundation for increasing a student’s
likelihood of success in engineering, business, sustainability or any kind of scientific research activity.
Course Learning Outcomes
As a result of taking this course, students will be able to:
1. Identify high-probability market segments that are awaiting innovative solutions
2. Define an engineering system in terms of “functions”.
3. Simplify systems by identifying and eliminating components or functions that have low value.
4. Identify the technical and physical “contradictions” that inhibit the best or most innovation solution.
5. Predict the natural evolution of a system or design and move it closer to an “ideal” state.
6. Move outside of an industry, to get solution and design concepts from other industries and
disciplines.
7. Identify opportunities for using these methodologies in future academic work.
8. Develop elegant solutions to difficult problems, which are simple and inexpensive, yet still
completely effective.
Course Requirements
Assignments
All assignments must be turned in at the end of class on the date they are due. Please contact the
instructor if you miss an assignment due to sickness or injury or other valid reason.
Academic Integrity
Developing a strong sense of the value and meaning of Academic Integrity is essential in this course.
ASU expects and requires all its students to act with honesty and integrity, and respect the rights of
others in carrying out all academic assignments, in accordance with the ASU Academic Integrity Policy
(AIP). Any form of plagiarism and cheating will not be tolerated. Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to
the following: copying another student’s work; copying or using words or ideas from a book, article,
website, etc. without giving credit; not citing a source correctly.
You are welcome to work with others on projects, but it is not required. Any group of students that
choose to work together on projects must submit a proposal to the instructor, including how the team will
divide up responsibility and credit. There will be higher expectations of the output from a team than from
an individual. The instructor reserves the right to not give credit or give partial credit to individuals within
the team who do not participate or contribute.
Course Grading
Demonstrating specific skills is critical to your success in this course. The table below provides details on
how your performance will be assessed for this course.
Percentage
Assignments
25
Quizzes
25
Projects
25
Final Test
25
Your final course grade will be based on the percentage of total points you earn during the semester as
follows:
A: 100%-90%
B: 89%-80%
C: 79%-70%
D: 69%-60%
E: below 59%
Course Schedule (Tentative*)
Week
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Format
Lecture/Collaboration Topic
On-Line
Lectures
Expectations, Elegance and the Bottom Line
Practice
Face-to-Face
Differentiating Elegant and Inelegant Solutions
On-Line
Lectures
Discovering Markets & Assignment discussion
Practice
Face-to-Face
Identify several innovations that would have a
high probability of success in the marketplace
On-Line
Lectures
Identifying Contradictions, Using Separation
Strategies & Assignment
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Review Completed Assignments Together,
Contest in Generating Solutions
On-Line
Lectures
Root Cause Analysis vs. Physics-Based Causal
Analysis & Assignment
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Review Completed Assignments and Practice
New Skills Together
On-Line
Lectures
Putting it all Together: Identify Market
Opportunities, Find contradictions preventing
elegant solutions and then overcome them
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Review Completed Assignments and Practice
New Skills Together
On-Line
Lectures
Guest Speaker: TRIZ Expert in France
Function Analysis, Value Analysis &
Assignment
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Review Completed Assignments Together and
Practice New Skills
On-Line
Lectures
Guest Speaker: TRIZ Expert in Japan
Simplifying Systems, Removing Harmful
Functions and Idealizing Functions &
Assignment
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Review Completed Assignments Together, plus
more practice scenarios
On-Line
Lectures
Applying these skills in other courses. Using
TRIZ to guide your learning.
Required Reading
The Elegant Solution
Definition, Wikipedia. A
Blog entry
Blue Ocean Strategy
Summary, BOS Article,
Clayton Christensen
video.
TPT**: Discovering
Markets
TPT: Resolving
Contradictions
TPT: Discovering
Cause
TPT: Resolving
Problems
Complete assignments
to complete “canned
problems”.
TPT: Working with
Functions
Complete assignment
to create function
models for simple
systems
TPT: Simplifying,
Selected sections from
the other eBooks.
Complete assignment
for identifying
opportunities for
simplifying systems by
using the function
analysis previously
done
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Guest Speaker - perhaps another ASU
professor that they will encounter
On-Line
Lectures
Non-Technical Applications: Discuss & Practice.
Discuss Assignment
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Review EPICS Projects if possible.
Invite author of “Social Innovation” to speak
On-Line
Lectures
Identifying Opportunities for applying TRIZ
when you are on the job.
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Review Completed Assignments Together
Guest Speaker from Honeywell
On-Line
Lectures
Finding new market opportunities. Discuss
individual interests
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Guest Speaker: Innovation VP at Arizona
Commerce Authority
On-Line
Lectures
Guest Speaker: Boris Zlotin – Russian TRIZ
Master
Advanced Causal Analysis
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Review the students’ causal analysis diagrams
to get feedback and help from each other
On-Line
Lectures
Solving tougher contradictions. Work through
several difficult “canned” problems. Review
causal diagrams and contradictions
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Review each other’s causal diagrams and
contradictions
On-Line
Lectures
Other Aspects of TRIZ: Evolutionary Trends,
Physical Effects Databases, 40 Principles and
the Contradiction Matrix, TRIZ Software
Also review questions on projects.
Collaborate
Face-to-Face
Project Presentations
On-Line
Lectures
Project Presentations
Face-to-Face
Final Test
Excerpts from “Social
Innovation”
Project Prep Step
1:Based on your
personal interest;
identify market
opportunities in a
related industry.
Read excerpts from
Mr. Zlotin’s writings.
Students share their
potential market
opportunities to gather
feedback from each
other during class
Develop causal
analysis diagrams
pertaining to your
system
Identify contradictions
from the causal
analysis diagrams for
your project
Generate solution
concepts from
resolving the
contradictions.
Students provide
project feedback on
each project.
*This schedule is tentative and may be changed during the semester as needed.
**TPT refers to the “TRIZ Power Tools” series of free e-books.
Assignments:
The assignments will typically be in the form of reading assignments and/or completing practice
problems that will demonstrate their understanding of lectures, discussions and/or past reading
assignments.
Reading assignments could be chapters from the various books within the TRIZ Power Tools
series, articles from the Harvard Business Review, book summaries and assorted articles from
other journals/websites.
This would be an example of a typical assignment for developing and practicing specific skills:

Develop at least 3 “elegant” solutions for each of the exercises on pages 538-539 of the
“Resolving Problems” e-book within the TRIZ Power Tools series. Remember that
elegance refers to solutions with are simple, inexpensive yet completely effective, i.e.
without compromising on any requirements. A handy context to use is to pretend you
are working in Soviet Union in the 1950’s, i.e. you have very little money and very little
technology to utilize; yet the solutions must still be effective.
Projects:
There will be several intermediate steps in completing their final project, which is meant to bring
together most of the discussed skills/concepts and result in a coherent and complete story of
student’s journey from identifying market opportunities, to understanding causes and
contradictions that have kept anyone else from innovating in that area, and finally, to developing
several “elegant” solutions, i.e. ones that are simple, low-cost and still completely effective.