Think inside the box
The title of an article from Harvard Business Review keeps coming up Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box.
While certainly not the first place to use the play on “out of the box” thinking, it is a good construct.
I read this many months ago and do find the idea pops into my head whenever I am in a meeting that stalls. Often these are my own meetings, where I realize that I haven’t provided enough structure to promote creativity.
Having a limit or constraint to work with provides a foil for creativity and this article does a good job of providing some examples that can be used. The full article is available for purchase but the 21 question sidebar is accessible, I believe.
Pulling people out of their comfort zone is a good way to stretch the brain and let some creativity happen. Describing the box, drawing on other areas of experience, etc are key to pulling people out of their zone into a new area.
The trick is, of course, to pick the right box(es) to use. You want to stretch people enough and to stretch them in the right direction. Too far out of their range is as bad as having two many options. It would be like asking my grandmother to consider quantum mechanics…you would have gotten a blank stare and be “tsked” out of the room quickly. But asking people to imagine their parents as patients using a personal health record, is something that a developer could probably stretch into.
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