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TRIZ

TRIZ helps groups unlock innovation by courageously confronting what’s holding them back. 
What Is Made Possible
  • Creative destruction: TRIZ invites participants to identify and let go of behaviors, practices, or assumptions that limit success - even those considered untouchable or “sacred cows.”
  • Safe space for bold thinking: By humorously exploring what would guarantee failure, participants surface hidden obstacles and unproductive habits in a non-threatening way.
  • Courageous conversations: The question “What must we stop doing to make progress on our deepest purpose?” sparks honest, often taboo-breaking dialogue - frequently accompanied by laughter.
  • Renewal and innovation: Once limiting behaviors are named and released, space opens up for fresh ideas, local action, and rapid experimentation.
  • Collective responsibility: Everyone contributes to identifying what to stop, making the process inclusive and empowering rather than top-down.

  • Time needed

    35 minutes 

  • Preparation

    1. Miro Board (online) or paper (F2F)
    2. Split into smaller groups (4-7 people) - prepare the rooms online in Teams

  • How to start

    1. In this three-step process, ask:
      • “Make a list of all you can do to make sure that you achieve the worst result imaginable with respect to your top strategy or objective.”
      • “Go down this list item by item and ask yourselves, ‘Is there anything that we are currently doing that in any way, shape, or form resembles this item?’ Be brutally honest to make a second list of all your counterproductive activities/ programs/procedures.”
      • “Go through the items on your second list and decide what first steps will help you stop what you know creates undesirable results?”

  • Step-by-step and timing

    1. Make an introduction about three segments and then conduct them (10 min per segment)
    2. Introduce the idea of TRIZ and identify an unwanted result. If needed, have the groups brainstorm and pick the most unwanted result. (5 min).
    3. Each group uses 1-2-4-All to make a first list of all it can do to make sure that it achieves this most unwanted result. (10 min).
    4. Each group uses 1-2-4-All to make a second list of all that it is currently doing that resembles items on their first list. (10 min).
    5. Each group uses 1-2-4-All to determine for each item on its second list what first steps will help it stop this unwanted activity/program/procedure. (10 min).

  • Hints

    1. Don’t accept ideas for doing something new or additional: be sure suggestions are about stopping activities or behaviors, not about starting new things. It is worth the wait.
    2. Begin with a VERY unwanted result, quickly confirm your suggestion with the group
    3. Make real decisions about what will be stopped (number your decisions 1,2,3…) in the form of “I will stop” and “we will stop.
    4.  

  • Examples of use

    1. Make it possible to speak the unspeakable and get skeletons out of the closet
    2. Make space for innovation

  • Link with other Liberating Structures

    Link with:

    1-2-4-All

    Ecocycle planning

    Open space

    Troika conculting

    Wise crowds

  • Link to Liberating Structures page

    TRIZ

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