P-TRIZ, a methodology for identifying process reengineering options and the associated solutions

Here is a new idea that will be of use to anyone documenting, analyzing, or redesigning business processes.Innovation is the process by which new commercial concepts – products, services, and processes – are brought into being, in order to generate business. It requires uncontrollable creativity positioned side-by-side with disciplined business practice. Most companies find it tremendously difficult. Innovation, the goal of creating new top-line value, is the antithesis of unreliable, hit and miss, trial-and-error, psychological means of lateral thinking and brainstorming. Rather, to satisfy shareholders, innovation must be repeatable, procedural, and algorithmic. Making effective progress requires much more than inspiration. Taking a creative or innovative idea and turning it into cash involves almost every part of a company. The new competitive battlefield is not the technology behind the engine or the air conditioner, but the design, the warranty, the service deal, the image, and the finance package. In this environment, typified by General Motor’s advertising slogan a car full of ideas, you can hardly separate the product from the service, and all services are driven by processes. The challenge in innovation today is thinking about and managing this extremely broad set of interrelated activities as a unified process. Those who model, re-design, and deploy significant new business processes in support of innovation also need a process. I call that process P-TRIZ.

Keywords:

P-TRIZ , Products , Services , Processes , Innovation , Lateral thinking , Re-design , Trial and error , brainstorming