Thinking Outside the Box: A Reply

John Sullivan is a working project manager who writes and speaks on project and career issues.

 

For years, project teams have been told to "Think outside the box." This cryptic directive has caused endless frustration and despair because even though it acknowledges that some thinking occurred, it also states that the thinking has been in the wrong place. But it doesn't say where the right place to think is, except it is not inside the box.

The phrase has been embraced by academics, consultants and business writers, the people who teach, write and advise about IT projects but have never upgraded a system or nursed yet another year out of a fragile legacy application. All these folks are advising bosses and executives to encourage "thinking outside the box" and those folks then bring its ambiguous call to action to your job.

Most of the time it's used during a crisis period in a project, when schedules are slipping and costs are accumulating and results are zero. There is an inherent sense of urgency about the phrase; almost a dying plea for staff to think of new ways to do things or to propose a radical change in approach so the project can then implement an "innovative" solution to meet its objectives. I've seen project teams put heart and soul into these exercises only to have their innovative solutions rejected on cultural or political grounds because "we don't do that here" or "the big guy will never accept it."

When management asks for innovation and …

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