- lecture: th/do 9:15-10:45 SG 3-15 (starts on April 5, 2022)
- Seminar: tu/di 9:15-10:45 online (starts on April 19, 2022)
The Seminar takes place synchronously online in the BBB room BIS.SIM https://meet.uni-leipzig.de/b/gra-w2c-fhz-qnp.
The seminar is part of the seminar module "Applied Computer Science", which also includes an (optional but strongly recommended) lecture.
Additionally an (fee requiring) online lab is offered with the TRIZ trainer of Target Invention. This is not part of the seminar module.
The conceptual basis of the lecture and seminar is a systemic approach to cooperative action and accompanying descriptive structures that are significant in the real world. As an instrument of complexity reduction, the system concept is based on a set of viable components whose interaction in the given systemic context produces a specific emergent functionality. An aeroplane consists of several components, none of them can fly, only the specific interaction of the parts produces the new function.
This understanding of systems, which is also closely related to the topic of Component Software in computer science, has many facets. In such systems, not only the structure but also their processing plays an important role. Such aspects - a systemically based concept of management, business processes and business models - were and are in the focus of the seminar.
The seminar is designed as a research seminar in which a number of colleagues from different institutions participate. In addition to student presentations, these staff members will also present their own texts and other works of current interest to be discussed together. With this seminar, we are thus offering you the opportunity to participate in our current research work. In order to ensure a certain cohesion among the seminar topics, the proposed topics are grouped around a thematic frame.
A more detailed study of cooperative action in technologically rooted business environments is in the focus of the seminar topics this semester.
Another important focus of the course is thinking, analysing and resolving contradictions. Thinking in terms of contradictions and modelling (initially) contradictory situations is a fundamental engineering and management competence, its teaching in the context of a "General Theory of Strong Thinking" (OTSM-TRIZ) and its further development as the "Innovative Design Method" (IDM) is at the centre of our teaching programme.
Nikolay Khomenko as one of the founders of the OTSM version of TRIZ points it this way:
The course has forced the biggest change in years in my way of approaching problems and analyzing them. The majority of the innovative solutions proposed by the method are better adapted to a research context where no solution is known, then to an industrial context where the desire is to reduce the cost of well-known solutions. Nevertheless, the problem analysis tools are extremely powerful in all situations. Over time I have noticed that the effects of the change in mentality are growing rather than fading away.
Source: http://www.trizminsk.org/d/Khomenko_Heritage(EN).pdf (Slide 21)
Ibid, slide 36
In order to be universal, the rules of problem solving methods should be as general as possible. But the more general the rules of problem solving are, the more general and the less practical the solution will be. And vice versa: when the rules (and methods) are specific and precise, they are helpful for solving a specific problem which is of practical use. However, the more specific they are the less universal they are as well.
Ibid, slide 40
Any problem can be stated as a contradiction between our subjective desires for something appearing in a specific context on the one hand, and objective laws that cause this specific situation, one the other hand.
Ibid, slide 42
Any element should be seen as a process and vice versa. This process, which is linked with a human being as soon as we are in a problem solving context, evolves in accordance with objective laws and takes into account specific objective and subjective factors.
We follow an Open Culture approach not only theoretically but also practically and make course materials publicly available. This also applies to the course materials you have to produce (presentations, seminar papers) as well as to (annotated) chat sessions of the seminar discussions, in which your names are also mentioned. We assume your consent to this procedure if you do not explicitly object. The discussions themselves are not recorded, but the chat protocols are published in an edited form.