How to Sail Through Creative Uncertainty
LAND HO!: A still from "Embrace Ambiguity," a video by the old salts of IDEO's New York office. The team wrote the script, hand-built the sets, then filmed and edited the clip themselves.
Fog is always present at IDEO, and not just at our San Francisco office. It's a metaphor we use for those iffy moments when a project team doesn’t know where they’re headed. Sometimes the cloudiness is caused by a big, abstract question the team is trying to answer, like “How might we improve education for preschool children?” Sometimes the uncertainty arises from the competing needs of the people we’re designing for—especially if they’re just one part of a complex system.
Setting sail in such foggy conditions can make for a rough voyage. It requires embracing ambiguity—an essential part of the creative process and a core value here. (I wrote about another IDEO credo, “Make Others Successful,” here.) Being designers, we couldn’t help but visualize what we mean. Here’s the “Embrace Ambiguity” video, handmade by our New York team.
When a boat filled with IDEOers (and a dog!) is enveloped in clouds, obscuring their view of land, no one jumps overboard or abandons ship. Instead, the crew brainstorms their way out of the haze. By taking small, continuous steps as a group, they’re able to make progress and find their sense of direction. It’s a simple trick our teams use all the time to navigate tough challenges and get unstuck.
If you’ve set your sights on a new world of ideas, you need to be okay with not knowing where you’ll end up before you start. By embracing ambiguity, you’re saying to your team: fog was in the forecast. Just stay focused, work together, and our final destination will soon come into sight.
What tricks do you use to get unstuck?
Experienced Service Delivery Manager | Agile Delivery & Program Management Expert | Certified Scrum Master (SSM & CSM) | Telecom & IT Specialist | Certified in ITIL v4, PMP?, Certified SAFe? 6 Scrum Master.
1 年awesome
Marketer, Strategist, Storyteller | Web2 --> Web3
6 年2 things:? 1) Get your creative juices flowing with a completely different activity - like sketching or creative writing. Then come back to the problem later.? 2) Chat with someone with a wildly different perspective. I'd talk to my best friend about tasks I was stuck at from work - she's a literary wonderkind...or my cousin who's a scuba diving instructor. They had zero preconceptions and even though their opinions are amusing at times, they're always refreshing, and ever so often possess a spark of genius!?
Inova??o | Desenvolvimento de Novos Produtos e Mercados | Sustentabilidade Ambiental e Créditos de Carbono | Consultor Experiente | Contrata??o por Projeto | Gerente Temporário | Agro | Químicos | Plásticos | Energia
11 年Great material. Congratulations.
Sr. Welding Engineer at BlueScope
11 年What tricks do you use to get unstuck? Several of my trick to get unstuck include: 1. A long walk, spent talking to myself (recorded on a digital voice recorder) 2. A hot cup of tea. 3. Playing with a deck of cards, IDEO Method cards, Creative Whack Pack, TRIZ innovation Planner cards or Art of War cards. 4. Storycubes 5. Writing a list of all I know about the problems 6. Reading something completely unrelated a Patrick F. McManus short story works well. 7. Take an early lunch outside of the office 8. Draw, sketch 9. Relax Item 3,4 and 5 I am trying to force the solution, the balance I am waiting giving time for my inner muse to get to work.
Tam Muro
11 年Hello, in principle, if it is a serious jam I like to go out on my bike and let my brain relaxing just pedaling, ideas are renewed as the breeze. Then, with the team, wallpapering some columns of a matrix with hundreds of sticky notes.