Modern TRIZ Academy India
Mr. Prerak Contractor
Business Development Officer
for India, Master of Global Production Engineering
Vadodara, INDIA
Tel.: +91-(265)-2356783
Mob.: +91-(0)-9898234371
| PENTACORE |   |
PentaCORE (pentacore – a word combined from Greek "penta – five" and English "core") – is a model framework made of five cores to guide the process of solving problems in inventing.
PentaCORE is a theoretical platform to integrate the fundamental mechanisms of thought for the practical synthesis of inventive ideas and solutions.
Hurdles in each and every solution to a problem or in the development of any given creative idea can be represented in the form of a 3 step structure (diagram):
The necessary conditions for the generation of an effective idea and the conditions for overcoming the first barrier are special professional knowledge, this means competence.
However, this knowledge is at least for the following two reasons insufficient:
The lack of experience in the development of creative solutions, insufficiently developed powers of imagination, the lack of the ability to dream and fantasize, to appreciate jokes and surprises can become an second insurmountable barrier in developing effective ideas.
But a command of creative methods is an insufficient condition for a complete victory. A very important factor to overcome the third barrier is psychological mobilization for effective thinking.
All of these aspects have already been represented for some time very pragmatically with the well-known threesome "To know – To be able – To want".
These aspects are a part of mental activity.
This is definitely not enough for practical applications.
We still need two aspects for the practical inception of any and every mental action.
The presence of resources both for thinking as well as for the realization of an idea in material form is a fundamental aspect. In other words, it has to be possible for you to do something. Of course, sometimes the human will can overcome impossible things. But we are generalizing here about any given situation, although we have to remember that the lack of any necessary resource either changes the contents of a solution fundamentally or it makes the realization of an idea in a current situation impossible.
And finally, the actual action taken is a decisive aspect. This means it’s not enough to dream – you also have to DO something. This can mean at the start that your action is to write something down on a piece of paper. Even if an idea appears to be "brilliant" to put it on paper can make it seem much more realistic. Lots of people are afraid of just this. They’re afraid they’ll destroy their beautiful fantasy image.
This means that the complete scheme of the creative process can be represented in the following form (diagram).
The question is whether you can invent something without special professional knowledge? This happens very rarely and only when lucky circumstances come together. But even in such cases, a sufficiently "trained" brain could recognize this idea.
Is it possible to invent something without the knowledge of creative methods? Yes, the entire history of civilization is based on inventions that were made without any method. However, if you want to use this as an example, then you should remember that a human life is substantially shorter than the history of civilization and you can’t find what you really want without the correct method. In other words, the condition "to have the possibility" cannot be fulfilled.
If you don’t want to invent, what should you do? It’s very simple: Just let it be!!
Is it possible to be successful even if there are insufficient resources? This has also happened when the actors had lots of stamina.
Can you be successful without doing anything? No, this is not possible with the possible exception of cases where to do nothing means to wait calmly and rationally for an opportunity.
It is therefore always better to act. Isn’t it better to think first before you act in order to have better possibilities? It’s even better to think with TRIZ so that you can find possibilities and ideas!
But how can you do this?
Three schemes demonstrate the key ideas that led to the development of the PentaCORE platform of modern TRIZ. This platform is directed directly towards the achievement of all the aspects of effective thinking listed above.
The first scheme illustrated below reflects the fundamental differences in thinking between the left side of the brain (rationality, logic) and the right side (irrationality = super-rationality, emotionality). This schema shows how we can make demands on theoretical and practical work results.
The second scheme is based on investigations of the brain’s activities that were started by a school of Russian neurophysiologists under the leadership of Professor P. Simonow 40 years ago – already in the 60’s of the 20th century. The results of these investigations are the foundations of the "topological model of the birth of an idea" (Prof. M. Orloff).
The general platform for the acceptance and application of this scheme postulates the hypothesis that the entire brain and all of its resources take part in the synthesis of a creative idea. It would therefore follow that all essential resources of the brain can and must be activated to learn and concretely apply this or every other method to guide the process of generating ideas.
This means that the strategic way towards the development of a new theory or at least to the formation of new practical methods of generating ideas is in the direction of the integration of various "specialized" intellects of the brain ... of one person.
The goal of this integration is a justifiable usage of creative methods that were once considered to be diametrically opposed to each other.
The basis for this integration is an understanding of the nature of thinking, at least in the form and to the degree in which it exists in the integral, mutually supportive functions of the left and right side of the brain and also in the forehead when generating new ideas.
Lots of examples demonstrate clearly that incredible solutions were discovered under conditions that were unimaginably complicated and composed of very difficultly combined elements. This confirms the suspicion that the human brain does more than just use certain mechanisms for selection. It seems to do something much more effective.
If we consider these assumptions to be true, then the contrast of the two intellectual strategies – left hemisphere or rational logical thought and right hemisphere or artistic emotional thinking – in the style of TRIZ and especially in the method of the connection of alternative procedures is a completely philosophical solution.
The leading trends in TRIZ and traditionally creative methods as well as individually and socially oriented models are integrated here in this scheme to put this platform into praxis.
Fundamental functional sub-systems that are called studios in the rest of this text because of their role in the study and application of its contents are as follows:
The scheme combines vertical and horizontal structuring of the functions.
Horizontally we can split the scheme into two halves that reflect the thinking done in the left and right side of the brain.
Vertically the scheme is divided into three parts.
Together these studios are determined to help train the "creativity machine" discovered by Professor P.W. Simonow in the frontal areas of the brain that he calls the "super-consciousness". This "machine" has hardly been investigated.
According to P.W. Simonow’s definition, it is especially the super-consciousness that brings the spark of a premonition, the suggestion and the idea of a solution into play.
But, two other "machines" – consciousness (primarily in the left side) and the sub-consciousness (primarily in the right side of the brain) determine the activation of processes (the current situation and all previous experience) and the stimulation of the super-consciousness. These are machines "to generate ideas".
This diagram shows the functional-logical structure of the conception PentaCORE for studying and application.
The investigation of this "matryoshka" starts with the smallest of the figures and runs in increasing sizes up to the most complicated stage.
In concrete terms, the study of modern TRIZ runs from the A and B studio over the C and D studio up to the E studio parallel to the increase in difficulty of the problems to be solved.
This is precisely how the solution to a problem is started in the methods of the studios as in the TRIZ conception "minimal problem". The methods of the other studios are then also applied in accordance with the increase in the difficulty of a problem from the A and B studio over the C and D studio up to the E studio.
This diagram shows the main components of the model PentaCore for studying and application:
In conclusion we should note that the founder of TRIZ G. Altshuller had already spoken of a similarly strategic evolution of TRIZ.
This evolution was examined in three stages that developed one after the other: TRIZ, Development of Creative Powers of Imagination (Russ.: РТВ – развитие творческого воображения) and Theory of the Development of a Creative Personality (Russ.: ТРТЛ – теория развития творческой личности). The question still remains how this evolution would look in praxis and what would serve as a reliable criterion for the realization and development of each stage.
The integration of the procedures in the conception PentaCORE certainly has a dependable methodological and psychological foundation and presents from these positions both harmony and pragmatism.
