WHAT DO THE CONCEPT GENERATION TECHNIQUES OF TRIZ, MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS AND BRAINSTORMING HAVE IN Common?

One of the goals of design research is to identify regularities across different design processes. This paper presents experimental evidence that there exist commonalities between three separate concept generation techniques: TRIZ, Morphological Analysis, and Brainstorming. This evidence is based on protocol studies involving mechanical engineering students that use the three techniques for performing different design tasks. The protocols have been coded using the function-behaviour-structure (FBS) scheme and then analysed in terms of the cumulative occurrence of FBS design issues. The commonalities found are related to the first occurrence of certain design issues, and to their continuity and linearity