ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that good ideas have frequently been rejected when first proposed. Much money, time, and human effort are lost when good ideas are rejected. People create new technologies and make creative use of existing technologies, generating many new ideas. To generate and select ideas for good solutions to problems, one should know the difference between strong and weak ideas. A strong solution resolves a contradiction, makes use of idle resources, and increases the ideality of the system. TRIZ is the theory that provides the basis for this model of successful problem solving. Disappointment in the soft approach causes organizations to return to the hard model. Then, after some time, traditional management is criticized for the lack of creativity and free idea generation comes into fashion again. Inventive methodologies in industry seem to oscillate perpetually between hard and soft models.
