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6.5. The 7-Step TRIZ Process: 5. Evolution Trends

How To Invent (Almost) Anything > 6. The 7-Step TRIZ Process > 6.5. The 7-Step TRIZ Process: 5. Evolution Trends

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Examine your system in terms of the trends of evolution of your device. Any parameter which is simple or uniform along any physical dimension can be made to be more complex. Consider making it more complex in successively more complex ways. Straight can be changed to angled, to curved, to wave formed, to complex wave formed, to matching wave formed to mismatching wave formed. Also think about how the time dimension has changed and might change. What if you make things shorter or faster, more frequent or occasional?

Consider making it more complex in more than one dimension, if necessary playing with ideas for all four dimensions. The trend for trends is to slowly, step by step, make each parameter one stage more complex, from uniform to linear change to curvilinear change to complex change.

A common evolution trend is for one parameter to change, then a second and then a third and so on. And the final trend for trends is to change your parameter in just one dimension, then two, then three and finally in all four dimensions, including time!

A technical trend might be where chocolate which was solid when sold, then segmented, then has voids (holes in it) then has things in the holes. A non-technical trend could be the shift from role based teams (“solid” single functional units) to complex teams which may then change to segmented, nested, flexible and asymmetrical. Software design has followed some of these trends, with the change from sequential to parallel processing.
 

Steps in the 7-step TRIZ process:

• 1. Resources
• 2. Parameters
• 3. Benefits
• 4. Ideality Gap
• 5. Evolution Trends
• 6. The 7-Step TRIZ Process
• 7. Resources Again

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