Does TRIZ Change People? Evaluating the Impact of TRIZ Training within an Organisation: Implications for Theory and Practice

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Lilly Haines-Gadd
• 关键词：TRIZ training ; evaluation ; creativity ; innovation
• 刊名：Procedia Engineering
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：131
• 期：Complete
• 页码：259-269
• 全文大小：306 K

文摘

The author conducted research into the impact of TRIZ training within a global FMCG organisation, repeating the research of Birdi et al (2010) [1], which was conducted within a global engineering company. This research is based on Birdi et al's (2010) [1] model, which suggests that different individual and contextual factors are required for different parts of the innovation process (idea generation, followed by implementation). This study has highlighted potential mechanisms that underlie creative behaviour: namely, cognitive factors (creative thinking skills), and affective factors (motivation to innovate and creative self-efficacy; and developed further a method of measuring them. The questionnaire (n=122) found that Birdi et al.’s (2010) [1] suggested mechanism of how TRIZ training improves idea generation - by improving levels of cognitive and affective factors - was partially supported. Trainees reported higher levels of creative self-efficacy, motivation to innovate, idea generation and patent submissions than non-trainees: while creative thinking skills were shown to be associated with higher levels of idea generation, no difference was found comparing trainees to non- trainees. Birdi et al. (2010) [1] predicted environmental support for innovation would influence idea generation and implementation, which was not supported, however as predicted, some of the measures of job-relevant capabilities were better predictors for idea implementation than training. Different levels of impact were found according to how much training the participants had received. This study therefore suggests some of the mechanisms by which TRIZ improves innovative behaviour at work: by providing an understanding of the functional changes as a result of training, better evaluation can be conducted by measuring individual's changes in cognitive and affective factors, providing a more rigorous measure of the impact of TRIZ training. The implications for practitioners in delivering the most effective TRIZ training are discussed (in terms of focus, structure and learning outcomes), as well as the limitations of TRIZ training and the other factors organisations need to consider in order to increase their innovative output. This research contributes to the literature by being one of the few evaluations of innovation training which is theoretically driven, conducted within an organisation, and repeats past work using the same training content (TRIZ). The research was conducted as part of the author's MSc in Occupational Psychology, and while she is a TRIZ trainer and practitioner herself, this research was conducted at an organisation which had received training in TRIZ from another consultancy.