Think outside the box... what do you mean?
A good majority of the tech job requires the candidate to be an outside-the-box-thinker. There is a huge swarm of candidates who put this key-phrase in their profile so that a recruiter would find them.
What do they actually mean? Who defines a box? What is inside the box? Why does the box actually exists? How many boxes do you have in the real world?
Does a candidate ever ask these questions? Does the recruiter or the hiring manager have an answer to these questions? Likely neither.
So then what do people mean when they say "think-out-of-the-box"? To understand this phrase, it is crucial to know what is the "box" here.
Box
It is the virtual representation of a set of rules defined by certain members of the team and/or management within which everyone is generally expected to search for solutions to all their problem. These rules are defined by
- the product spec developed by a Product Manager
- are derived based on the customer requirements
- technological knowns (or I should say unknowns). For e.g. A JAVA box is different from C# box because their rules/capabilities are differently unique. Once known, others may learn/derive to enhance themselves. This is what I call adopting-the-bigger-box as in Matryoshka dolls.
- architectural boundaries. For e.g. a typical on-premise application will be very difficult to adopt a bigger box of "cloud". This may require a complete re-design or a major retrofitting effort. Here you are pushing the boundaries that are defined by the on-premise architectures & designs.
- the team dynamics and team culture. This one is the toughest box to break. Many have perished in their endeavors to break this one while very few have succeeded.
Out of the box
Simply, this means everything that is outside of the above discussed boxes. Everything that is unknown falls in this space. Using venn diagram, you see that A has solved all the red problems where as B has solved all the green problems. These solutions are now known.
Innovations would likely be missed as long as A remains within the boundaries of red-zone and B stays within its own. For either of them to innovate, they must push the boundaries out and venture into the blue-zone of unknowns. You are literally stepping out-of-the-box.
This phenomena and the ability of pushing the boundaries or breaking a rule (for the greater growth) is what I refer to as thinking-outside-the-box. Such exercise would lead to innovations.
The frequency with which one challenges the status-quo to push the boundaries out will define how innovative they are.
Eager to hear you thoughts on this topic.
Director of Product Management at Nutanix
9 年Here's what taught me what it means to think out of the proverbial box: In the diagram you have with your blog, just replace all "x"s and "o"s with dots. Then, connect all the 9 dots with just 4 straight lines. Once you start drawing the lines, you cannot life your pen until you finish drawing the 4 lines. (Assuming, of course, that you will solve this with a pen on a paper). A professor from IITB who was visiting my family taught me this simple metaphor for "thinking out of the box" when I was in my 10th grade and I will never forget this lesson. Thanks Prof. Shah. :)
Customer obsessed. Solution focused. Lead by example & influence.
9 年@Priya Be a revolt! When some one gives NO as an answer for what you Can and Cannot do, think and see if may want to challenge them. If you do,you may be thinking out of the box and exploring what can be done that is outside someones box. Remember, don't challenge someone repeatedly (pick your battles wisely) but when you do be prepared for a push back.
Head of Channel Partnerships, Americas at TeleSign
9 年Better yet, define the current box so as to know when you are thinking outside of it :)