In another study, they adjusted their building techniques to maximize available material, figuring out how to hold long pieces of nest material to fit them through the small entrance of their nesting area.
– How Do Birds Know How to Build Nests?
In Systematic Innovation terms, even the bad stuff is good stuff – we merely haven’t thought hard enough yet about how to make the transformation from lemons to lemonade.
– The TRIZ Journal
When students work hard to improve in one subject, they may incur a cost in the form of marks lost in another subject. Within a single subject, time spent on one component appears to avail less time for other components. This state of affairs has been described in many ways including, opportunity cost, trade-off, dilemma, compromise, win-lose, side effects, competing interests and two front wars – chase two rabbits and both will escape.
A problem-solving methodology developed by Russian engineer, Genrich Altshuller seventy years ago, promises a way out of this fix. Studying thousands of patents, Genrich distilled the principles of inventive problem solving and termed his theory, TRIZ – teoriya resheniya izobretatelskikh zadatch which has come to be known as The Theory of Inventive Thinking.
TRIZ is a comprehensive framework comprising among many other things, 40 principles of problem solving and would according to Shulyak (1998) require, “many hours of study” and practice. TRIZ offers key insights on problem solving such as, “the same problems and solutions appear again and again across industries and most organizations tend to re-invent the wheel” and “the most powerful solutions eliminate the compromises and trade-offs” making “maximum use” of existing resources (The TRIZ Journal).
In TRIZ terms, the aforementioned dilemma of competing interests or the problem of improving in one area only to accept compromising performance in another is known as a contradiction. The TRIZ methodology involves isolating the contradictions in a system – what gains at the expense of what.
Contradictions which are identified are then represented in a simple drawing. This is known as S-field modelling. This is something like how students in primary school represent Mathematics word problems with models except instead of bars and units, S-Field modelling is constructed with symbols (representing individual elements which are enmeshed in the contradiction) and arrows (representing the relationship between these elements).
This affords an elegant way to comprehend the root cause of a problem and helps problem-solvers decide how to resolve contradictions. For example, users of a lift may want it to move faster. A faster moving lift would require, “using new motors and high-tech air pressure systems” (Powley, Murdoch & Jones, 2014). To upgrade the lift system would be costly for the installer, leaving less resources for other endeavours. The contradiction can be framed this way: Higher speed, lowered resources.
The contradiction, framed this way, presupposes the solution and takes for granted that users, in fact, want faster lifts. Thinking about the problem this way would require adding resources to form the solution – something TRIZ advocates against.
A problem solver might find the S-field thus conceptualised unsatisfactory and consider reframing. Users want faster lifts not for speed’s sake but because time spent standing around in the lift appears wasted. A redrawn S-field might include not the external mechanics of a lift system but the various elements of the lift’s interior instead. A problem solver would then be staring at elements such as the interior walls of a lift compartment and trying to relate it to time use. The question then becomes how best to enhance use of the lift interior for users to spend their time productively.
Principle 22 of the TRIZ principles is Blessing in Disguise or the art of turning lemons into lemonade which entails, using “harmful factors (particularly harmful effects of the environment or surroundings) to achieve a positive effect” (The TRIZ Journal). Bare walls amplify the sense of being cooped up which makes time appear to drag on. The problem solver turns the walls into full length mirrors. Now the lift appears to move too fast. This utilizes the concept of ideality, a TRIZ term, which holds that the more a system benefits and the more it minimizes costs and harms in providing such benefits, the more ideal it is.
There are different types of problems. Jonassen (2000) has identified 8 distinct types such as logical problems which “tests reasoning” through abstract puzzles, troubleshooting problems which is “fault state diagnosis”, strategic performance, “real-time, complex performance with competing needs” and design problems which consist of a “vague goal statement with few constraints; requires structuring”.
Some problems and especially those of the 21st century require moving away from old paradigms and creating new ones. This needs inventive thinking which is one of the 21st century competencies identified to be imparted to students here (Ng, 2020). The word ‘invention’ at first glance seems to convey the idea of pulling a rabbit out of a hat or creating something from scratch. However, one of the cardinal principles of TRIZ is that the wheel should not be reinvented. TRIZ strongly evidences that looking outside of one industry or domain to learn and synergise applicable principles from other domains results in breakthroughs.
This is what is known as an inter-disciplinary approach which consists of “inquiries which critically draw upon two or more disciplines and which lead to an integration of disciplinary insights” (Haynes, 2002 as cited in Jones, 2010). All over the world, the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach are being recognised.
For example, the Sante Fe Institute in New Mexico studies complex phenomena such as, “social polarization” and the relevance of “biological survival” to “economic choice” (Santefe.edu) by synthesizing the bodies of knowledge in different fields. The Design 2025 Masterplan in Singapore which has as its aim, to create an “innovation driven economy and a lovable city” by 2025 calls for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary – which is “the transcendence of disciplinary norms, sometimes in the pursuit of a fusion of disciplines” (Design Education Review Committee Report, 2015) approaches to design.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach means looking for opportunities for synergy. Such opportunities are typically located by scanning for similarities across domains.
One similarity across all subjects with the exception of mother tongue languages is that they are all taught in English. The textbooks are in English. Students therefore have a great advantage in their English learning because of the synergistic potential this presents. If they know how to harness this synergy, they might solve the age-old dilemma of opportunity cost which has hitherto been resolved by being strategic with time, for example by choosing to focus efforts on a component which is worth more marks at the cost of another component which also requires improvement.
Students revising Science notes for example can practise (mentally) categorizing words found in texts into their various word classes or reinforce their learning of suffixes – ous, ment, fy when they recognise words with suffixes. They could take note of scientific vocabulary which they could use in compositions or which might be tested in vocabulary MCQ. When doing Mathematics word problems, students are advised to write a simple word statement to explain the mathematical reasoning behind each number statement. Some students find this difficult. While they know what to do, they are not as sure of how best to explain their reasoning. In trying to do so, students are actually practising the same skill they would be using in open-ended comprehensions – to explain reasons with words.
Someone who faces sudden changes in the environment or time constraints might feel like the very ground beneath has shifted or is shifting. It will be very useful then to apply TRIZ principle 22. Looking for similarities between different domains might help to spot potential synergies. This will allow for maximal use of existing resources while minimizing inevitable disruption.
By thinking inventively, unutilized resources can be used to design and construct fit for purpose solutions.
Such solutions are akin to a compound exercise which targets different muscle groups. They show how many birds can be housed with a few tweaks.
The Brain Dojo
