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Graham Rawlinson,
graham@dagr.demon.co.uk
NSA, 12 St Peters Park, Aldershot, Hampshire, GU11
3AU, UK
www.dagr.demon.co.uk Phone +44 (0) 1252 330121
Those who know me know I like to try TRIZ out on everyday things, and the
other day I thought I would tackle TRIZ and filing!
You may be like me and hate filing, and hate all the accumulation of stuff
that is sometimes interesting to nostalgically look over but otherwise, despite
its category in your head of, 'might be useful one day' in fact you never look
at it until you are thinking of throwing it away - and so you don't, and the
mess gets bigger and bigger.
So, I wondered how to represent this as a problem or wish. I want to keep
things but I do not want to increase the weight or number of materials I have in
my store. This sounds like a Contradiction, and I identified what
I wanted to improve as Loss of information (I keep it because I do not want to
lose it), against three worsening factors of Amount of Substance, Loss of Time
and Harmful Effect of Object (it takes up more space).
If you are new to TRIZ you can obtain a free copy of the Contradiction Matrix
and the 40 Principles that TRIZ Masters found were ways of solving these kinds
of Technical Contradictions. Just go to Ellen Domb’s article in the
July 1997 edition of the TRIZ Journal -
www.triz-journal.com <http://www.triz-journal.com>
The features to change are the Parameters of the Matrix, and more can be
found in Ellen’s October 1998 article and a business version of the same in
September 1999.
The Principles that the TRIZ Matrix suggests are reassuringly on the right
track, and some, of course, we may employ already.
- Mediator: File things in a temporary
storage box very quickly and after some time you will have a better idea
whether you want to keep them or not.
- Replacement of a Mechanical System:
File them in your computer.
- Transformation of Properties: File
them in your computer.
- Copying: File them in your computer
(as this has come up three times it seems to suggest this does answer the
problem, but does it?)
- Change the Colour: Colour code when
filing, so have a green box for efficiency stuff, blue box for wild ideas, red
box for safety and so on.
- Prior Action: This prompted the
thought that I could carry out an “un-filing” activity prior to every filing
activity!
- Rushing Through: Just one big dump box
(as I seldom look for stuff and can’t find it anyway, why not?)
- Convert Harm to Benefit: Choose to
have two dump boxes, one for stuff that you will eventually recycle and one
that just goes in the bin.
Although storing material in my computer is possible through scanning I do
not think at the moment that it would save me time, though of course some
companies are doing this where they have masses of material. But a combination
of the other ideas looks worthwhile. So I now have some red, green and blue
boxes, and for each of these colours there are two boxes for recycling and for
dumping. But also, and the boxes are helping here, I now carry out prior action,
dumping at least twice as much as I file away every time. This may seem very
time consuming but in fact initially it is not so hard as you are picking things
which you dump on the criteria of easy to decide and weighs a lot! And I took
prior action prior to this action by starting with an hour going through the
pile picking out anything that was easy to decide to get rid of! At some point
the harmful effect will lessen so the ratio will change, but for the moment, it
is looking better every day!
I also thought about my computer and mailing list! It gets longer day by day,
so I have now chosen to reconfigure all new additions in a new listing, and dump
two addressees for every one I add, not forgetting to say hi as I do so, so if
someone is really interested in keeping in touch then they can do so, which of
course will prompt me to dump two more! So, at last the hoard is going down in
volume, the address book slowly looks cleaner, and I have another Everyday TRIZ
story to tell.
So, have fun with Everyday TRIZ and please post here at the TRIZ journal if
you want to add to an Everyday TRIZ collection of Stories or post to me at
Graham@dagr.demon.co.uk
PS - my collection now includes: TRIZ and decorating, food hygiene, washing
up, gardening, planning a holiday, cleaning the house, waste removal and
disposal, and shopping.
About the Author: Graham Rawlinson is the Principal Innovation
Consultant, Next Step Associates. He is a co-author (with David Straker) of -
"How to Invent Almost Anything" - an easy introduction to the art and science of
innovation and a contributor to "Creative Education, Educating a Nation of
Innovators." His chapter contains a comparison of the processes of Synectics and
TRIZ. The first will soon be published by Chandos Publishing, Oxford, England,
ISBN 1 84334 024 0 and the second can be obtained from the offices of Synectics
Inc. London, telephone +44 (0) 207 616 9798
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