Tag Archives: physical contradiction

Fiscal Cliff – TRIZ solution

27 Thursday Dec 2012

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Fiscal cliff? What’s that?

I asked Professor Mankad (Sir). He explained it to me in detail. I loved learning that big picture from him. I must admire President Obama for the way he has put in his plan. Everyone in US Admin knows that “We are in trouble”. But how to get your idea win, should be learnt from Obama & Team.

When Sir explained whole thing with immense patience, I thought about what could be the solution. Sir also suggested that  what are the possibilities and what could be the likely future? I felt – we are (going to be) in deep trouble. Sir suggested that this trouble could be even deeper, longer and disappointing than the 2008 melt down.

I’m scared. For all such troubles I always look at the other side as solutions. OTHER SIDE here means socialistic approach to solving capitalistic problem. I smsed Sir – could “Sanjha Chulha*” be the solution? It would help provide few  jobs for people in Sanjha Chulha and reduce expenditure of unemployed on food. When that happens, Govt can reduce expenditure of unemployment benefits.
*Sanjha Chulha means community kitchen.

The other approach I thought was using TRIZ. Actually that is what Govt must be doing (without the jargon of TRIZ). Before discussing the solution framework, a brief on Fiscal Cliff (Details – About link and Wiki link).

Fiscal Cliff – is a deep impact due in the budget of Govt. Because as per “Bush tax cut” (of 2003) the taxes would increase at the same time Govt has to reduce spendings e.g. unemployment benefits offered for 99 weeks would reduce to 52 weeks, defense budget reduce by say 50% etc. All of this would result in recession in the USA. The challenge for Govt is – how to control it? Fiscal Cliff is also a function of debt reaching a ceiling % of GDP.

In TRIZ there is a solution type for such issues. That is named as physical contradiction, which means you want something and you dont want that at the same time. You want Tax cut and you dont want that. You want reduced expenditure but you dont want that.

Simple solution is – “increase ceiling debt as % of GDP”. Other solution would be, TRIZ offers solution by separation principle.

1. Separate tax collection based on condition. This is tried arguement is on tax ceiling (Obama says 400k, Congress says 1M).
2. Separate tax collection based on organization vs individuals. In TRIZ it is kind of separation of parts Vs the whole.
3. Separate tax collection on time. This separation could be coupled with solution 1.

1. Separate spends based on condition. spend ceiling on spends of different types
2. Separate spends based on community vs individuals. Healthcare Vs unemployment benefits
3. Separate spends on time. Delay spends which could be avoided.

For testing all these ideas a very simple mathematical model and “goal-seek” of Microsoft Excel can be used. (Though its not that simple – but who wants to complicate things? Objective is to simplify life) politicians/consultants like complexity, who can leverage it.

Relevant news Euro debt reaching 90%

Separation principle

Related blogs –

1. Double dip

2. Euro is it dead

3. Need of the hour

TRIZ in sales and channel management

19 Wednesday Jan 2011

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Contradictions! We live in a world of choices, conflicts and trade-offs. The following idiom says it all – “you can’t have your cake and eat it too!” In this regard, there is an approach to solving such problems wherein you are faced with contradictions. The theory is named TRIZ – the theory of inventive problem solving. By way of example, let me introduce a contradiction in simple terms.

Let’s say you want to increase pressure in a vessel and the result of that also reduces temperature, which you do not want. The conflict in this case is clear: increasing one parameter affects the other parameter negatively, or, changing a parameter positively affects another parameter negatively, which creates an undesirable outcome. The idiom used above “you can have your cake and eat it too!” implies a potential physical contradiction- You want a cake but you cannot eat it!

TRIZ is extracted from the field of engineering. This methodology helps resolve the contradictions without compromise. Lately, I tried applying concept of TRIZ in class of Prof John Davis (Dean SP Jain Center of Management, Singapore/Dubai) on Sales and Channel Management. There was a company which had acquired many diverse companies and thus had a dilemma of structuring its sales force differently to increase efficiencies. The range of organizational options included – letting the sales force be as they were (independent), merge the sales forces, using distributors, or a unique combination of these or alternative structures.

The solution of merging or having independent sales forces had their own positive and negative implications. This type of issue can be termed as “physical contradiction” in the language of TRIZ. To solve physical contradictions separation principles are applied. So, when applying the principle of separation on condition and space, we can identify that the sales force could be geographically separated (separation based on space). The conditional separation in this case was manifested in determining big account vs small accounts for both distributors and an in-house sales force. Additionally, the conditional separation was represented by a merged sales force (one bag) vs a separate sales force (silo) for product offerings.

Thus, though TRIZ was distilled from field of engineering but we can apply principles of TRIZ to solve problems in different functions (e.g. sales in this case) and other non-technical fields. I am trying to apply TRIZ in different fields and I have also identified application of TRIZ in marketing, strategy planning and areas where conflict appears, though I feel there is a lot more to be done in terms of making it easier to apply.

Balancing act… continued!

09 Sunday Jan 2011

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Recently, I wrote about the ‘balancing act’ based on the story of the Buddha. I started observing the concept of balance to a greater detail when I received the story from Prof Mankad, and here are few pointers in this continued blog.

What I have realized in my studies lately is, the “engineerish thinking” (numbers all the time all the way) is not the end in itself. Marketing has long been a function requiring creative thinking. Long time back – before my joining my MBA – someone (talking to me) made a remark – ‘marketing is a bottomless pit, you do not know the return on investment etc etc. Now in the era of result orientation everything is being measured and therefore the results are key for marketing departments too’. Here again creativity should not take toll on numbers. Thus, a balance has to be made between being creative and being critical for return on investment.

Second thing what came to my mind with reference to marketing, and in general to all of us, was perceptions. While communicating to outside world e.g. marketing companies try to play on ’emotional’ hot button of target audience yet want to be analytical of the effect of the marketing efforts. Again the balancing act comes into play based on the perspective inside out Vs outside in.

In case of say leading teams, one needs to balance. Leader needs to involve and empower his team at the same time guide when anyone needs help (I wrote about this earlier in blog Growing and becoming leaders). Thus, a balance has to be made between giving power to take decision and taking control of situations when required. I had few things in my mind regarding the same in the language of TRIZ. In TRIZ there is a principle called separation on condition (giving control and taking control based on condition) for such cases. I would write more on application of TRIZ in marketing and sales in some other blog.

Changing gears, in personal life we manage relationships. At times these relationships come to such a point that we need to act as a funambulist (tightrope walker) to sail through the rough patch of managing the relation. So, balancing act continues throughout the life.

Ideate – Save the sinking ship

22 Wednesday Dec 2010

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Prof Mankad said in our class ‘there seems to be possibility of double dip’ while teaching us macroeconomics. I have written on this in my blog at times. At times question comes in mind, why not using concepts of one field to the other the way we do it in TRIZ (The theory of inventive problem solving). I recalled a news shown on NDTV (it was shown in 2008 somewhere in Aug-Nov). I remember this news because it was unique and I rarely watch TV(:)). So, here comes use of TRIZ to tackle the economic crisis in a non conventional way. I am sharing the idea with a hypothetical scenario.

As an everyday ritual Vijay logged on to his mail box, amongst others the mail from HR stared back at him. Feeling the heat of economic crisis the company was in process of layoffs. How many Vijays have the same stories to recount? How this time can bring us together and make us more innovative to reckon with the challenge – this challenge is not questioning us only on one front of economics but also on cultural and creative fronts?

Employee-employer relations are unlike marriage where a pair takes an oath to live together, and share all the grief and joy. In this tough time each should support other for survival and future growth and say – “yes! We are for each other”. It has been proved important and useful in the Japan after the World War II. Lately, a group of ex-workers of a mill bid to revive a dead mill; Garware Nylons Ahmednagar. All the workers joined hand for revival of the mill. In this successful bid the sense of belonging was such that the families of ex-employees even-handed over their jewelery and large sums from their provident fund. Way back in 1996 instead of shutting the mill down, if the management and the workers had come together and decided to make a plan to save the mill on a model of a marriage by surviving in the tough time, they might have come up winning and everyone might have lived happily.

In recent week there was news in FT that EU is considering bailout in some forms. Bailout is a ‘self-mutually exclusive’ option that is – bailout is needed in the toughest time but it is ill-advised as it is ‘passing-the-buck to taxpayers’. Government needs to bail out various industries; however, the companies may misuse the amount. In such case questions are asked that – How to make companies accountable for the same? When to loan, how to loan and how to gauge the performance of the waived organization?

Bailout can be tackled when government separate this option of bailing-out upon condition of time and space i.e. conditional separation of amount of money offered, accountability of use of money, time-to-time checks and balances. Separation of assets and liabilities can be one more initiative and offering incentives other than monetary could be other.

Additionally, if we attentively look around we can learn from nature too. Birds fly in flocks, why? Because flocking helps conserve energy, defends against predators and facilitates orientation and communication. Energy is everything involved in the business – various resources, money and time – it needs to be conserved. Instead of salary cut and layoffs companies can take loans from employees, offer shares or bonds to the employees to generate money. This not only can engender trust in teams but also can invigorate teams to work for their own company. Are you keeping those many Vijays in your team? Are you willing to take on the challenge by sticking together, being creative and innovative to carve success over the slump to ply in the present to fly in the future?