Just what is Ideality?

Ideality = Benefits / (Costs + Harms)

Ideality is a concept from Triz that suggests that the “Ideal” solution is one that has everything you need but is virtually free and has zero harms. Taken at its extreme, the ideal solution is a system that carries out the required function but doesn’t actually exist. This isn’t as far fetched as it might appear since there are many systems that work very well yet are extremely cheap and generate few harms: lines painted on floors or roads to demarcate where you should or shouldn’t be; angled entries into public toilets (restrooms) rather than install doors or pencils for writing in spacecraft rather than sophisticated pens. These are all examples where the function – what it is supposed to do – is the overriding factor in the design of the system.

What this means in practice is that you need to thoroughly understand what function you need before attempting to devise a solution. Hence the emphasis in the earlier blogs of framing and problem definition.

Promax has Ideality embedded and has a number of prompts to be used to help define ideality:

1. What is the objective? That is what function are you looking for?
2. What do you need/want? That is what benefits are you expecting?
3. What don’t you want? This is nearly always cost (the lower the better and free even better) but also other harmful factors (maybe environmental impact, safety, security, etc).

 The information you collect is then used in a number of ways going forward. First, the clarification of the objective ensures you have focus on what you’re trying to achieve with your solutions. This is used in the Idea Generation stage to make sure everyone has a clear focus of the problem.

The second element is that the benefits, costs and harms are used as the criteria against which the ideas generated can be evaluated. Ideas that give the greatest benefit for the least cost and fewest harms are, by definition, closer to ideal. We carry out the evaluation in the prioritisation stage of the Cogentus Framework and a blog on this will follow in due course.

In summary:

Ideality = Benefits / (Costs) + Harms

You’ll recognise that this equation is the same as that used in traditional evaluations. It’s the same as Value For Money – the more you get for the least cost the better and this is the context that ideas (which can be new innovations or continuous improvements) can be evaluated.

It’s worth remembering though that getting as close as possible to Ideality requires a thorough understanding of what function you are trying to achieve. Hence there’s little point in demonstrating that you have a value for money solution if you’re actually providing the wrong solution!