Don't Think Beyond The Box

Just about everyday, everyone is having to think of new ideas. This could simply be what someone is going to cook for dinner that night to creating the newest technology that will change the market for years to come. In the article "Breakthrough Thinking From Inside The Box," a new form of brainstorming is discussed in great detail. How common is this scenario: a group of about twenty employees gather in a single room to brainstorm new ideas for either a new product or how to improvement what they are already doing. Most often, this type of teamwork gets nowhere. Ideas may be brought forth, but not in the most efficient manner.

In my product management class, we did a similar type of discussion: what could the future hold for the Apple iPhone. After a few minutes of thinking to ourselves, each person in the class announced their own idea. By the end, there was a dry erase board full of very possible ideas. This article says that open-ended brainstorming doesn't work, but in this case we were quite successful. Why is this? I think that one reason this exercise worked is that we were all in the same mindset. The iPhone is something that greatly appeals to our age group, 20s-30s. Instead of thinking of outrageous ideas, we kept in mind that these improvements have to be ones that we would actually use ourselves. The open-ended brainstorming strategy may only work if the group chosen for the discussion have some kind of attachment to the product or idea, whether it be an emotional one or a vague one.

Still, the inside-the-box thinking style is a revolutionary one. Because it narrows down the playing field of thought, there is much less room for bringing unnecessary things. From my own personal experience, I've had too many group brainstorms that turn into arguments over pointless issues. Its easy to stray from the task at hand. Although this new method is successful, how user friendly is it? Everything looks great on paper, but when you put it into use, it may not seem so feasible. For this brainstorming method to work, the team leader has to be very conscious what he is doing. Several of the stipulations required to have this type of group discussion include: structure the meeting so that the social norm works for you, not against you; focus on your preselected objectives; separate the over-confident people from those who are more soft-spoken. These are all very possible, but I don't believe that this article takes in consideration that many of these things may not work, depending on the work environment you are in.

Thinking inside the box is something we should start striving for in the future, but I think that box needs to be made a little bigger to allow for any problems with the process that may arise.