The I2I Innovation Toolbox

Individual Assignment by Ekaterina Bolotskaya

Zwicky Morphological Box
Not every person especially with analytical type of mind is spontaneously creative. For
those who occasionally struggle to generate new ideas, Zwicky morphological box can help.
Fritz Zwicky made the remark before me all inventions were a matter of luck... What
he meant, I guess, was that he invented a process that insured the person using it that all the
alternatives were carefully considered before the final decision was made. Employing the
Zwicky Box is using a tool that can itself generate more application opportunities and ways to
use it. The process is a discipline and way of using your innate mental skills. It quickly becomes
a way of organizing and thinking - a creative habit. Its a tool for the systematic exploration of
options within a defined system. This process has proven to be very useful for science,
technology and many other areas of decision making and planning.
The idea of the tool.
The idea is very simple. There are usually five iterative steps in the whole process:
1.

Definition and analysis of the problem: the question is formulated and is written

over the morphological box as a caption.

2.

Determination of the parameters: higher-level parameters are allocated to the

subordinate aspects, and entered in the first column of the matrix. For reasons of complexity,
there should be no more than seven features selected. These should be as independent of one
another as possible, and must be applicable to all possible solution variants relevant to the
problem in its entirety. This step is the crucial one, and it may be supported by the use of other
creativity techniques like mind-mapping.
3.

Determining possible attributes of the parameters: for each parameter, possible

attributes are now determined and entered in the matrix cells to the right of the associated
feature. If at this stage the features give rise to too many attributes, so that the scheme becomes
unmanageable, it is possible to reduce the undue complexity of the situation by breaking it down
into sub-matrices.
4.

Determination of the combinations: each possible combination of individual

attributes represents a solution, which is linked with a line on the matrix.

5.

Evaluation of the alternatives and selection of a solution: the alternatives that have

been identified in step 4 will be examined to see if they are technically feasible and economically
viable, with a view to picking out the ideal solutions.
Everything begins with identifying and defining the parameters (or dimensions) of the
problem to be investigated, and assigning each parameter a range of relevant values or

conditions. A morphological box is constructed by setting the parameters against each other in an
n-dimensional matrix (for example, Figure 1.). Each cell of the n-dimensional box contains one
particular value or condition from each of the parameters, and thus marks out a particular state or
configuration of the problem complex.
The point is, to examine all of the configurations in the field, in order to establish which
of them are possible, practical, interesting and so on, and which are not. In doing this, we mark
out in the field what might be called a solution space. The solution space of a Zwicky
morphological field consists of the subset of configurations which satisfy some criteria.

Figure 1.
A Zwicky Box usually by definition has two or three dimensions. Large multidimensional
Boxes require computers to sort thought all the possible solutions.
For example: The problem is to improve a ball-point pen (Table 1).
Form

Material

Cap details

Ink cartridge

Cylindrical

Plastic

Separate cap

Steel cartridge

Faceted

Metal

Attached cap

Plastic cartridge

Square

Paper

No cap

Permanent

Beaded

Wood

Retracts

Paper cartridge

Sculptured

Glass

Cleaning cap

Cartridge made of ink

Table 1.
Solution: A cubic pen. One corner writes and the six surfaces are used for notes, photos,
ads, calendars and so on.

While large scale multi-dimensional Boxes are necessary for technological applications
where all of the connections in a domain can be studied, the use of the technique in both a simple
and complex form to brainstorm new combinations in fields both mature and not yet fully
formed, is - properly employed - a useful technique.
Advantages and disadvantages.
The morphological approach has several advantages over less structured approaches. It
may help us to discover new relationships or configurations which may not be so evident, or
which we might have overlooked by other less structured methods. Furthermore, it encourages
the identification and investigation of boundary conditions, i.e. the limits and extremes of
different contexts and problems. It also has definite advantages for scientific communication and
for group work. The method demands very clear definition of parameters, conditions and so on.
One point that is considered to be the disadvantage of the morphological approach is the
fact that its too structured and that this reduces free creative thinking. But still properly applied,
morphological analysis offers an excellent balance between freedom and necessary constraints.
One more weak point in using a Zwicky box is that the more parameters you take and the
more dimensions the matrix has the larger the number of possible solutions will be most of
which will probably be not feasible or not practical. And it takes a great deal of time considering
and analyzing all the possible solutions. But nowadays this problem is solved by using the
computers and it even extended into a useful group-oriented method for structuring and
analyzing complex policy spaces.
Application.
Zwicky applied this method to such diverse fields as the classification of astrophysical
objects, the development of jet and rocket propulsion systems, and the legal aspects of space
travel and colonization.
More recently, morphological analysis has been applied by a number of researchers in the
USA and Europe in the field of policy analysis and futures studies. In 1995, advanced computer
support for GMA was developed at the Swedish Defence Research Agency. This has made it
possible to create interactive, non-quantified inference models, which significantly extends
GMA's functionality and areas of application. Since then, more than 100 projects have been
carried out utilizing computer aided morphological analysis, for structuring complex policy and
planning issues, developing scenario and strategy laboratories, and analyzing organizational and
stakeholder structures.
Developing scenarios and strategy alternatives: The development of scenarios is a
common task within military analysis. Scenarios are designed in order to test the capabilities of
different force structures and to define the capability requirements for different tactical and

operational situations. However, developing complex operational and tactical scenarios presents
a number of difficult methodological problems.
Applicability in different research areas:
WEB engineering (Handling temporal data in B2C Systems);
Architectural Engineering (Classification of facilities elements for supporting project
definition of urban renewal mega project, Methodology of a new building diagnostic);
Quality management;
Innovation management (Innovation management for technical);
Project management;
Redesign of products and services;
Information systems management (Information and management systems for product
customization).

References.
Zwicky, F. (1969). Discovery, Invention, Research - Through the Morphological
Approach, Toranto: The Macmillian Company.
Ritchey, T. (1997). Scenario Development and Risk Management using Morphological
Field Analysis. Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Information Systems (Cork:
Cork Publishing Company) Vol. 3:1053-1059.
Bailey, K. (1994). Typologies and Taxonomies - An Introduction to Classification
Techniques, Sage University Papers: Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks.