I love the Smart Little People problem-solving tool from TRIZ that invites you to compose your problem of smart little people and ask, “What would they do?”

Smart Little People is one of a suite of psychological inertia tools for unblocking your thinking and giving you new ways to look at solving a problem.

In the sketch, I was trying to illustrate how they might find a solution to a cut with what is effectively a clot.

Smart little people

One of the 40 inventive principles. Application not limited to mechanical engineering.

Cheap disposable objects

I love the idea that the computer just disappears backwards into the plug. Neal Moore first mentioned this to me. In the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving there’s an idea that all functions will eventually be subsumed by the system above it. Assuming that we will always need some sort of power it makes sense that the computer will disappear into there at some point. The iMac was essentially a jump where the computer disappeared into the screen. For this reason I’ve often thought that floors, walls and ceilings should be given more thought than they are. When everything else has changed, I reckon they will still be around. I wouldn’t mind if our dinner table disappeared into the floor once we were done with it for example.

Plug computing

Not so easy to get your head around as we’re used to thinking that most things are they way they are because someone chose it for a reason. But it turns out that increasingly we see products that have found benefits in otherwise stable products by simply taking a flat surface and either adding shape or texture. (two of TRIZ’s trends of technology evolution)

A flat surface has unused potential

The idea of resolving contradictions I was taught by Darrell Mann. This neat example from Simon Dewulf.

Triz sketches