TRIZ 40
40 inventive principles distilled from patent literature for resolving technical contradictions.
"Most 'breakthrough' inventions are just a known TRIZ pattern applied to a new domain."
What is TRIZ 40? 40 inventive principles distilled from patent literature for resolving technical contradictions. Structured product innovation without waiting for genius.
Segmentation, asymmetry, the other way around, nesting, and 36 more.
Structured product innovation without waiting for genius.
When stuck, scan TRIZ principles before brainstorming free-form.
Use the model. Pick the move.
40 inventive principles distilled from patent literature for resolving technical contradictions. You've just seen this: Segmentation, asymmetry, the other way around, nesting, and 36 more. Which lever does the model recommend?
Pick a lever. There are no neutral ones — every incentive funds a behavior somewhere.
Pick a reaction to TRIZ 40
One tap. We'll point you at the most useful next surface based on how this hits.
The full taxonomy entry
Every concept in the Atlas uses the same structure — so TRIZ 40 can be compared, recombined, and cited like an element on a periodic table.
- Business
- Leadership
- Government
- Healthcare
- Education
- Sales
- Marketing
- AI
- Negotiation
- Media
- Public Policy
- Relationships
- Where in our org would TRIZ 40 most often show up unnoticed?
- Which metric, ritual, or contract clause quietly rewards TRIZ 40?
- If we removed every payoff for TRIZ 40, what behavior would replace it?
- Who benefits when TRIZ 40 persists — and who pays the cost?
- People defend the status quo using the language of triz 40.
- Decisions cluster around the easiest narrative rather than the strongest evidence.
- New data changes the slide deck but not the decision.
- Anyone naming the pattern is treated as the problem.
Every Atlas entry is a node in a knowledge graph. See the related rail below to follow the connections.
See TRIZ 40 through 3 lenses
Each layer of the Incentives OS reframes this concept with its own thinkers, vocabulary, and diagnostic question.
Do you actually know TRIZ 40?
Three quick questions. Result is saved into your review streak — come back when the term is due to lock it in.
Which best describes TRIZ 40?
Worked example, counter-example & concept map
On-demand AI analysis grounded in the Lab's research. Cached on your device after first run.
When you encounter TRIZ 40, your prefrontal cortex has to do extra work to override the automatic response — and that override budget is finite.
Executive control, planning, impulse override, working memory, System 2. First thing to go offline under stress, fatigue, or low blood sugar. Why your 4pm decisions are worse than your 9am ones.
See Prefrontal in the Brain Atlas →Picked for you, from the Atlas
Ranked by shared learning paths, overlapping chips, and what you've saved.
Deriving general rules from specific examples; the leap from instance to concept.
The brain evolved to reason adaptively, not always truthfully, to reduce the cost of errors.
We solve problems by adding, even when subtracting would be better.
Assuming that if one option is true, another must be false, when both can be true.
Presuming a purposeful actor behind events that may have no actor at all.
What cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating.
Send the card, not just the link
A pre-rendered social card with the title, eyebrow, and URL. Copy the link, post it anywhere, or download the SVG for slides.
More definitions to follow
Every term in the Atlas connects to a dozen others. Pick any of these and see where it takes you.
When quality is hard to verify, bad products drive out good ones.
Key node of the brain's reward circuit; tracks anticipation of rewards.
We assume our current state will persist into the future.
A 'good' act gives moral permission for a later 'bad' one.
Schools evaluated on test scores teach to the test.
Deriving general rules from specific examples; the leap from instance to concept.
Masking the sponsors of a message to make it appear grassroots.
Nonlinear systems are highly sensitive to initial conditions.
Renewed interest in a stimulus when a novel stimulus is introduced.
Low ability paired with high confidence.
Subsidizing coastal living and freezing flood maps treats catastrophic risk as a public liability.
Believing past events were obviously predictable once we know how they ended.