"Extend-Your-Thinking-Box" from INSIDE

'Please Think Out Of The Box'--we have heard this often, a worn-out management cliche, whenever our ideas become stale and out of novelty. The origin of this might be the famous 'Nine Dot puzzle' where one is asked to connect all the nine dots arranged in a square without lifting the pen. But for a good mind teaser for children to prick their friends it appears to me non-sensical from my structured thinking perspective. Everybody is unique and each of us have our own thinking space within which we 'think'. What I can see is what I can think (remember, the Nine-dot puzzle really allows you to see outside the nine dots if you chose to.) We search for solutions within our idea space (box). Therefore, if we visualize our individual thinking space as our own box with us at the centre, how can we even 'see' what is lying outside our box lest 'thinking' about it (unless the box is transparent allowing everyone to see the whole world of ideas out there, obviously not the case). What is the only thing one can do to see beyond the box (mind you, while being inside it)? Just break the walls, blow the box or expand the box. While the first two options connote 'radical behaviour (thinking) reserved for few mavericks', I prefer to use the phrase 'Expand Your Thinking Box' as the right metaphor for continuous enlargement of one's knowledge and thinking space--a la' STRCUTRED INVENTIVE THINKING for the ORDINARY (aam admi) wherein TRIZ methodology provides a great source of inspiration. BTW, I stopped using 'TOB' phrase and instead started using 'EYTB" ever since I discovered the beauty of TRIZ.


I define one's Thinking Box (in EYTB model) as having TWO dimensions: (X) (Extent of) Problem-Definition and (Y) Solution-Sophistication (with Origin as the Current Problem Statement and Top-of-the-mind Solution). At the exteme end of X-Axis (Problem Statement) is the IDEALITY (or Ideal Final Result in TRIZ terms) statement and the corresponding extreme on the Y-Axis defines 'Sophisticated Solution (or technology abstraction)'. There's enough technology (Solutions) available in the world to solve most of our problems if only we could learn how to define/redefine the problem and leverage existing knowledge/technology. Therefore, while the ability to Define/Redefine the problem (by looking farther at the IFR) is indicated as one of the dimension (X) of the Thinking Box, the skill to identify the corresponding elegant solution(s) by scanning the current knowledge base of the world (or using TRIZ tools) defines its second dimension (Y). We can converge to the most elegant (inventive) solution by analyzing all data points within that Box by starting the inventive search from IFR (from farther end of Problem-axis) and moving towards the 'reality' (Origin).

As we move away from the old paradigms of inventive thinking (dominated by psychological plays such as brainstorming, random word stimulation, etc.) to the new STRUCTURED THINKING paradigm inspired by TRIZ, I feel 'Expand Your Thinking Box' is the right catchword.

More about STRUCTURED THINKING and EYTB in my next blog. Glad to welcome your thoughts.

- KG Krishna

(C) Copyright 2009, KG Krishna