Since the last wave of interest in creativity and innovation (1980-1988), most organizations have been focused on focusing, controlling, streamlining, current customer satisfaction and all the things that drop immediately to the bottom line. This focus and pressure has allowed some companies to survive and put others out of business who could not keep up the pace. Some have used TRIZ problem analysis in this effort and many more have not, using the same old techniques from decades ago. Some form of a stage gate process has become commonly used to track, filter, and assist in the decision making on the progression and funding of new products and services.

Now we are faced with a new challenge---with all the effort spent on current processes, products, lean manufacturing, stage gating, Six Sigma, and other standardization, we have become excellent at managing what we have, but we now look behind us and find there are few new product and business opportunities entering the funnel. Everyone has been doing these same control and standardization things to excel in what they currently do, so now there is no competitive advantage. A new term, the "Fuzzy Front End" (FFE) has sprung up describing the need to identify new product and business opportunities that are not necessarily linked to our current customer base and product line. This is a difficult transition, not only for senior management, but for engineering, technical, and R&D personnel who, for at least a decade, have been discouraged from new thoughts and ideas. Conferences and research projects now abound relating to the study of how this is addressed in organizations and tools that can assist in generating ideas to enter the funnel and initial part of any stage gating process.

So how can we be successful in this new area of need? First of all, recognize that this is a radical change, psychologically, for most of the people in your organization. A simple memo or motivational speech is not going to turn attitudes around over night. There's a good chance, that over the past ten years plus, you have changed your hiring criteria and practices to screen out people who think differently. And the ones still in your organization will hesitate to suggest and speak up until they are convinced that the organization is truly serious, and that their careers are not in jeopardy for suggesting or getting involved with FFE ventures and activities. Use our audit and assessment tools to assist you in knowing where you are starting from so that you know the nature and length of the journey ahead of you. We'll be glad to talk with you about what may be needed and how we can help, or direct you to others who can.

Secondly, use the new tools that are available to you that weren't available ten years ago. TRIZ is a problem solving and identification tool set that can assist FFE ventures and activities in several specific ways:

1. Most new product breakthroughs and patents are the result of a contradiction resolution. Inventory all your current products and services and prioritize them in terms of their contradictions, either in terms of their design functionality, their fulfillment of customer needs, how they are used by customers, and how they are processes internally. Prioritize these in terms of impact, both short and long term, and then list the TRIZ tools that can be used along side (Contradiction table, 40 Principles, Separation Principles, "Reverse" TRIZ, Resources)
2. Review all of your current products and services against the TRIZ Lines of Evolution, either manually through the original eight lines we have reviewed and discussed many times, or through the use of a powerful new software tool that allows mapping of your product or business against 35 TRIZ Lines of Evolution. This will graphically display your FFE needs immediately and link them with the appropriate TRIZ tools. See an example of one of these diagrams in the Intellectual Property section of our web site.

These two activities alone will put you light years ahead of what anyone else is doing in the Fuzzy Front End technology area. We are ready and eager to assist you in this effort.