23. Glossary

• Action: One of the 7 Elements of an Outcome or Function. Action is performed to cause the End State.
• Actor: A person who has desires needing innovation or who makes innovations. Actors are divided into two types Customer and Innovator, which are subdivided into User, Buyer, Payer, Communicator, Designer, Maker, and Seller.
• Alternative: There are 15 Alternative approaches to achieve any Outcome or Function. The 15 Alternatives are organized into a 3x5 Grid with rows: Single, Multiple, and Continuous; and columns: Direct, Indirect, Keep Stable, Make Stable, and Return to Stable.
• Assumption of Approach: Is assuming there are no other ways of achieving the result. Using the 15 Alternatives will help you avoid making Assumptions of Approach.
• Assumption of Result: When the purpose is not accurately defined the undesired results are assumed to be the goal.
• Begin State: One of the 7 Elements of an Outcome or Function. The State of the Object before the action occurs.
• Buyer: The Actor who makes the decision to buy the product or service. A buyer can be one or more different people.
• Communicator: The Actor who gathers and transmits the information of the desires of the customer and the benefits of the product or service. The communicator is the link between the innovator and customer.
• Component: The physical parts or computer code used to make a product. Components are the real world items that perform the Functions of a product or service.
• Condition: One of the 7 Elements of an Outcome or Function. Condition is a State that affects the results of the action trying to achieve the End State.
• Continuous: One of the 3 scales of the Alternatives Grid. Continuous
• Customer: The person who uses, buys, and pays for a product or service. A customer may be a single person or different people who perform the roles of Users, Buyer, and Payer.
• Designer: The Actor who forms the information needed to build a product or perform a service.
• Desire: Desires are what an Actor wants in a particular Scenario. Desires are subjective and usually emotionally based.
• Dilemma: When there are two desired results and it seems that the only way to improve one is to make the other worse.
• Dimension: A range of properties or categories for describing an object.
• Direct: One of the 5 directions of the Alternatives Grid. Direct actions are performed on the Object and stop having effect when the action is stopped.
• Direction: The 5 columns of the Alternatives Grid: Direct, Indirect, Keep Stable, Make Stable, and Return to Stable.
• Element: The 7 fundamental parts of an Outcome or Function: Objects, Begin States, End States, Actions, Tools, Conditions, and Resources.
• Emotional Assumption: Beliefs formed to confirm the emotional state.
• End State: The State of the Object after the action has occurred.
• Fractal: Infinite complexity resulting from repeated simple rules. Benoît Mandelbrot is the mathematician credited with describing the concept of a fractal. Fractal mathematics describe many natural structures and occurrences.
• Function: Function is the change needed to achieve a desire. Innovations perform Functions to satisfy desires. A Function is similar to an Outcome but is focused on the action rather than the States.
• Function Diagram: Graphical representation of the process of achieving a goal, also known as a flow chart.
• Functional Distinction: A difference that affects the results generated or meaningfully alters the way something is done so as to make something possible that previously was not possible.
• Generalization: Assuming something is the same or applies in different situations. Accurate generalizations are useful for finding similarities but inaccurate or excess generalizations can lead to incorrect conclusions.
• Hyper Cube: An asymmetric multidimensional data set. Unlike a symmetric multidimensional data set where there is a value for each combination of dimensions, a hypercube might have combinations without data. An example is a hypercube of states, cities, and streets. Not all cities will have all the same street names.
• Indirect: One of the directions of the Alternatives Grid. Indirect is the opposite or different approach. If the direct approach is adding more, indirect is removing to have less. If the direct is the material then the indirect is Tool or environment or something else that is not the direct approach.
• Keep Stable: The direction of the Alternatives Grid that starts with the desired States and maintain that State.
• Make Stable: The directions of the Alternatives Grid where the State starts in an undesired State then changed to become a stable desired State.
• Maker: The Actor who makes the product or performs the service to achieve the innovation.
• Morphological Analysis: A thinking system created by Fritz Zwicky, noted physicist, based on breaking a problem down into parts to allow you do find all the combinations.
• Multidimensional: Having many dimensions. Physical objects have 3 spatial dimensions. Many other physical and non-physical dimensions can be used to describe an object such as color, weight, price, or age.
• Multiple: One of the scales of the Alternatives Grid. Multiple is more than one and less than continuous or infinite. Multiple scale can be applied to anything.
• NLP: Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a method for understanding and altering mental states and reactions.
• Object: The focus of innovation or problem solving. The thing that needs to change to achieve the desired State.
• Outcome: Objective State that results from a cause. Used to define the criteria for satisfying desires. Consists of Object, Begin States, End States, Actions, Tools, Conditions, and Resources. The fundamental building block of innovation.
• Outcome Driven: Activities guided by achieving result. Focusing on the States needed to achieve the desired goal.
• Outcome Diagram: Graphical representation of the criteria required to satisfy a desire.
• Paradigm: A set of assumptions and beliefs that guide behavior.
• Payer: The Actor who pays for or provides the materials and labor needed to make the innovation.
• Purpose: The goal of using a product or service. What the user wants to achieve. Often expressed in subjective terms.
• Resource: Anything in the environment that can be used to achieve the desired State.
• Return to Stable: One of the five directions of the Alternatives Grid. Return to Stable allows the desired State to change but returns to the desired State.
• Scale: The three rows of the 3x5 Alternatives Grid consisting of Single, Multiple, and Continuous. Each of the three scales is functionally distinct from the others.
• Scenario: All the information relating to an Actor's particular set of desires. Described by an IF...THEN statement.
• Single: One of the three scales of the Alternatives Grid. Single is described by words such as: one, first, only, and unique.
• State: State is the value of an Object such as color, size, weight, or the occurrence of an event.
• Tool: Tool is directly used to perform an Action.
• User: User is the person who uses the product. User is one of the Actors that make up the three roles of a customer. Also see: Actor, payer, & buyer.