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The basic premise of TIPS was that one could train engineers on solving problems, pretty much like martial arts trainers do: by exercising and learning tricks.

The basic premise of TIPS was that one could train engineers on solving problems, pretty much like martial arts trainers do: by exercising and learning tricks. Theory of Inventive Problem Solving nicely abbreviates as TIPS. That's how it has been known in the west for decades. ТРИЗ is a Russian acronym. TRIZ just replaces Cyrillic letters with equivalents. If the author digged a bit deeper, they would have known it and a few funny stories. Like the fact that Genrich Altshuller did not want his teaching to carry on once he dies, but fan groups of engineers existed until the fall of the Soviet union when many of their members emigrated and continued the TIPS cult following, selling courses and software to large enterprises (Dassault, Lockheed Martin and the likes).

mananaysiempre 5y ago
For what it’s worth, theory of inventive problem solving is not a very good translation of теория решения изобретательских задач teorija rešenija izobretatelʹskih zadač: as far as I can see, it parses as [inventive [problem solving]] with inventive meaning something like “unconstrained by convention, prolific intellectually, embodying the spirit of invention”, for which the proper Russian is изобретательный izobretat-elʹ-n|yj; the original name has a different syntactic structure and uses изобретательский izobretat-elʹ-sk|ij “belonging to or characteristic of inventors”, so the proper translation would instead be something like theory of solving problems of invention, which is admittedly awkward (and doesn’t afford a snappy acronym) but at least successfully conveys the idea that the “invention” part pertains to the problems, not the solutions or the theory.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  > (and doesn’t afford a snappy acronym) TOSPOI even sounds Russian!
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    It still rolls off the tongue better than TANSTAAFL ("There ain't no such thing as a free lunch").

mananaysiempre 5y ago

For what it’s worth, theory of inventive problem solving is not a very good translation of теория решения изобретательских задач teorija rešenija izobretatelʹskih zadač: as far as I can see, it parses as [inventive [problem solving]] with inventive meaning something like “unconstrained by convention, prolific intellectually, embodying the spirit of invention”, for which the proper Russian is изобретательный izobretat-elʹ-n|yj; the original name has a different syntactic structure and uses изобретательский izobretat-elʹ-sk|ij “belonging to or characteristic of inventors”, so the proper translation would instead be something like theory of solving problems of invention, which is admittedly awkward (and doesn’t afford a snappy acronym) but at least successfully conveys the idea that the “invention” part pertains to the problems, not the solutions or the theory.

formerly_proven 5y ago
> (and doesn’t afford a snappy acronym) TOSPOI even sounds Russian!
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  It still rolls off the tongue better than TANSTAAFL ("There ain't no such thing as a free lunch").