SIT - Systematic Inventive Thinking
At the heart of SIT's method is one crucial idea: that inventive solutions share common patterns. It's an idea that may seem paradoxical: for isn't the mostnotable thing about inventive solutions how uncommon they seem, how unique and original? In fact, it would seem that if you wanted to understand inventiveness, the natural place to start would be to study what sort of characteristics set inventive solutions apart. But in the mid-20th century, Russian engineer Genrich Altschuller decided to study creativity differently: by focusing not on what makes inventive solutions different, but on what, if anything, they might have in common. His exhaustive study – of over 200,000 patents – revealed strong patterns in innovative ideas. It is the insight that Altschuler derived from his lifetime study – once again, that inventive solutions share common patterns – that drives SIT's methods, and led to our development of the Five Thinking Tools that form its core.
