Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Think inside the box!

The cliches of creative thinking could sometimes be counter productive.

As you all probably know, "think outside the box" and "find a creative solution" are common phrases in problem solving. Letting yourself loose of current constraints (Of, sometimes, resources, technology and money), and trying to find a solution outside of your current method of operation.

In our world, this could lead to adventurous, cost and money taking processes. Rewriting something because it doesn't work. Using a new library which solves "everything". Changing and switching components. Redesigning your UX.

However sometimes, the solution is not far away from what you already have.
Take a small piece of paper and jot down all the resources you already have in hand which could be involved with this problem. Now start writing possible solutions USING THOSE RESOURCES AND ONLY THEM.

You might just find you already have a solution inside your box.


1 comment:

  1. I'm actually doing this right now. Some people love adding almost a 1:1 ratio of plug-in to feature. It's harmful in the long run with dependencies changing and inconsistent behavior between components.
    Right now I'm trying to advocate that unless it's absolutely necessary, we should try to first implement ourselves abstractly (so it's reusable) before looking for external solutions.

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