Inside TRIZ

Photo of Adi BhallaJanuary 2010

 Adi Bhalla

Abstraction is the ability to describe the essence of a situation using simple words devoid of technical terms and jargons and is one of the core skills of strong innovators.

Abstraction thinking helps in overcoming terminological inertia which acts as a psychological roadblock towards generating strong innovative solutions. Terminological inertia constrains the mind to think in the narrow groove of possible solutions as known to the profession.  One way of checking whether the description of the core problem has been made in simple form is to ask the question: “Will a teenager be able to understand all the terms used to describe the situation?” Another way could be to ask the question: “Will understanding this description require the reader to be fully inducted into our organization?”

Analogy thinking is the ability to review the abstract situation and be able to relate to similar situations in completely unrelated domains.

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