TRIZ: Teorija Reshenija Izobretatel'skih Zadach

Approximately 50 years ago in Russia, a particularly successful problem-solving system began to be developed. It was named TRIZ, the acronym of Teorija Reshenija Izobretatel'skih Zadach (loosely translated as 'Theory of Inventive Problem Solving').TRIZ is well known for its successful transfer of various inventions and solutions from one field of engineering to another.

TRIZ is a collection of tools and techniques, developed by Genrich Altshuller and Rafik Shapiro (Altshuller 1999) that ensures accurate definition of a problem at a functional level and then provides strong indicators towards successful and often highly innovative solutions. At the definition stage, a number of techniques are used to ensure that the problem is placed properly within its context (simply changing the context may solve the problem...) and the available resources listed. In the most popular (though probably not the best) technique for solution, the problem is then characterized by a pair of opposing or conflicting characteristics (typically 'what do I want' and 'what is stopping me getting it', but Hegel's thesis and antithesis will do as well, suggesting that it is a form of dialectic process), which can be compared with pairs of characteristics derived from other, solved, problems derived from the examination and analysis of more than three million significant patents.

http://tribes.tribe.net/triz