Innovation by SIT

Gravity was discovered. Hydroelectricity was developed. There is little argument there. The first is a natural phenomenon which does not owe its existence to Newton. The second is a manmade technology that uses that natural phenomenon in a way that did not exist before it was developed (late 19th century – would you believe it?).

When it comes to the human psyche, the picture gets a little fuzzier. Arguably, the unconscious was discovered, while psychoanalysis was developed (also late 19th century). But the boundaries between what existed independently of Freud’s work and what was developed by him and his followers are somewhat blurred.

When it comes to methods for enhancing creativity or inspiring innovation, it is safe to assume that most of us would subscribe with the “developed’ option. The notion of a “natural” ideation methodology seems strange, if not ludicrous. Nevertheless, when we come to examine the origin of SIT (Systematic Inventive Thinking) we must carefully reexamine this notion.

Let’s take a closer look at the SIT methodology for new product development (NPD). At the heart of this methodology are 5 thinking tools, which are based on 5 templates of innovation. These templates are the outcome of a comprehensive analysis process of thousands of successful new products. These were collected and classified in an attempt to identify common patterns. Each such pattern depicts a certain type of transformation from the original version of a given product to the successful version of that product which was included in the analysis. And each such pattern was identified due to the fact that it was shared by several different successful products. The outcome of the analysis included 5 innovation patterns or templates, each occurring across a diverse range of successful products.

At that point in time (before the thinking tools, and the methodology around them, were developed) this analysis may have seemed like an academic exercise in hindsight. Be that as it may, there is little argument regarding the fact that these templates were not developed. They were discerned, identified, recognized – or, in other words, discovered.

Much like gravity – this discovery can help us understand the world around us better, but it would take some further development if we are to use it to change that world. In the following months and years the thinking tools and the SIT methodology were developed to achieve exactly that – to use the naturally occurring templates, common to so many successful products, in order to actively inspire and develop new successful products.

This development processes did not resemble parallel attempts to develop ideation methodologies, simply because it had a very different starting point. It was not initiated with the aim of developing a methodology that would help people ideate better (a very wide and highly vague objective). Rather, it set out to find ways to use (or reuse) the innovation patterns that had already been identified. Additionally, since these patterns occur in the products’ domain, the starting point of the thinking tools is a product, rather than a user or a specific need. These particular characteristics of the development process are responsible for the creation and incorporation of unique methodological elements such as the Function Follows Form principle*, the marketing & feasibility filters, the use of cross-functional ideation teams and several others.

While these methodological elements are independent of the ideation patterns, their development process is interlinked with the identification of the patterns, much like the development of hydroelectricity is interlinked with the understanding of gravity.

It is true that SIT owes much of it’s efficacy to the accumulated experience and know-how that have been collected and incorporated into the methodology in the past 14 years. However, it is still the discovered basis that provides much of the power of the developed methodology. And it is the awareness to the reciprocal relations between these parts of the methodology that allow it to continue to develop without losing its core competences.

* A term coined by Ronald Finke (Creative Cognition, 1996).

Note: strictly speaking, the discovery-based nature of SIT was inherited from its ancestor – TRIZ, and the original insight that innovations follow patterns is due to its developer, Genrich Altschuler.