Resource constraints and creative freedom.
My grandfather’s stopwatch sits on the desk next to my keyboard. It’s ticking.
Countless examples from the world of art support the idea that tight contraints can foster great creativity. For an easy set of examples, consider the formal patterns of poetry; the haiku, sonnet, and sestina forms, for example, have provided a playground for poets as great as Shakespeare and Issa. One of my favorite constrained forms is the Fibonacci sonnet, in which you write a story with successive sentences that have the same number of words as the corresponding entry in the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. (I’ve composed a few of these.)
The business world is full of constraints, too. You never simply have a project to complete, because you must carry it out:
- in a given time
- with a certain set of people
- within a certain budget
- in line with other objectives
- based on certain principles
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
When you’re really working creatively, you don’t ask for fewer constraints. You take the constraints you have and you do something amazing within them. Kathy Sierra talked about this brilliantly in this post:
You should rush over and read the whole thing, but here’s the crux: “Big ass budgets and tons of time don’t necessarily produce better products.”
This viewpoint agrees with the one expressed in this new Fast Company post that talks about the work of Robert Stephens, the founder of Geek Squad. On the topic of innovation, Stephens says this:
Ramen Noodles. This is why startups are so innovative. Large companies want to be nimble, that’s why they go to “idea” conferences. I suggest starve departments of money.
He’s right.
Ten minutes — time’s up. Amen.
Category: Innovation & Entrepreneurship, The working lifeIf you liked this post, please consider subscribing to the RSS feed so you can receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.
4 Comments so far
Leave A Comment
There’s a fine line between “hungry” and “starving” though—does cutting the budget to zero provide infinite creativity?
Of course not, Lorin — but then I wasn’t suggesting that, either. I *did* give myself ten minutes after all — not ten seconds or zero seconds.
My point: in MANY cases we wallow in our resources. We’re nowhere even *close* to that fine line you rightly talk about. We use up too much time, too much money, too many hands. We’d be better off doing smaller, leaner projects, and doing them NOW.
[...] Resource constraints and creative freedom. [...]
[...] know my bias: constraints bring opportunity. A wall blocking your path transforms into a backdrop for a surprising victory. You follow a [...]