Upskilling in Creative Constraints

I have always considered myself to be a creative person, or at the very least a crafty person. But, I have always known my creativity to be limited to those things which I am good at doing. For example, I love painting my nails. It’s therapeutic, it’s challenging, and most importantly, I love the end results. I am so proud of myself when the final product matches the inspiration photo I found.

Thus, I am creative enough to see a photo of a fantastic nail design and recreate it, sometimes without instructions, with ease. However, I am not creative enough to see 100 nail polish colors and my blank nails as a canvas and create a novel design that’s more than dots and lines.

Looking back, I realize this is how I have approached creativity in general. I tend to start with the end in mind and work toward replicating something that already exists, which reflects a more convergent way of thinking.

Understanding Creative Constraints

I initially thought this limitation was unique to me, but through this research process I learned that it is something many people experience. At the start of my upskilling process, I needed to better understand what is meant by creative constraints.

According to the video The Power of Constraints by Brandon Rodriguez, creative constraints are the requirements and limitations we have to address in order to accomplish a goal (TED-Ed, 2017).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5FL9VTBZzQ

Divergent vs. Convergent Thinking

Through this process, I learned that divergent and convergent thinking are two different, but complementary, parts of creative problem-solving. Divergent thinking is about generating an “avalanche” of ideas without critique, pushing beyond the usual, tried-and-true solutions (Gould et al., 2023). Convergent thinking is more focused, evaluating those ideas, narrowing them down, and turning them into something realistic and actionable.

Looking back, I realized I was skipping a step. I would immediately move into convergent thinking, focusing on what works and what I’ve seen before, instead of first giving myself the space to explore what could work.

Practicing Divergent Thinking

With that being said, my goal for this upskilling in this subject was somewhat broad. Initially, I wanted to create a project plan using the constraints already provided by my job, however I quickly pivoted to enhancing my own creativity and creative process. I used the exercise from the journal as a base for stepping into a more divergent way of thinking. The exercise consisted of five prompts where you only had 45 seconds to come up with a solution. It was intentionally unrealistic and highly constraining, for example, “the solution must use magic” (Gould et al., 2023).

The goal wasn’t the prompts themselves, but to train the brain to think in vastly different ways from your normal thinking. After completing the exercise and getting into a creative mindset, I continued thinking outside of the box and came up with ideas that were different from the usual improvements I typically generate.

Creating a Different Type of Exercise

Usually, when it comes to improving course materials or curriculum, I rely on tried-and-true methods first. This is where my convergent thinking typically shows up.

However, this exercise pushed me to think more broadly before narrowing anything down.

As a result, I came up with the makings of three exercises that could be done in the classroom, one of which I decided to fully create. The finalized exercise is an activity designed to give learners space to explore Epic on their own first, then build on that understanding with a partner before walking through the correct workflows together.

This experience has taught me that sometimes the approaches I take to solve a problem is just as limiting than the organizational constraints I've been given. Sometimes finding the right solution can come to you if you just start broader and don't limit yourself before you even begin.

Final Reflection

This experience has taught me that sometimes the approaches I take to solve a problem can be just as limiting as the organizational constraints I’ve been given.

Sometimes, finding the right solution comes when you start broader, allow yourself to think divergently, and then refine those ideas into something usable.

References:

Rachelle K Gould, Tomomi Saito, Karen E Allen, Aletta Bonn, Mollie Chapman, Laÿna Droz, Thora M Herrmann, Austin Himes, Hiroe Ishihara, Marcondes G Coelho-Junior, Fukamachi Katsue, Jasper O Kenter, Barbara Muraca, Stefan Ortiz-Przychodzka, Jasmine Pearson, Marc Tadaki, Betty J Rono, Norie Tamura, Constraint breeds creativity: A brainstorming method to jumpstart out-of-the-box thinking for sustainability science, BioScience, Volume 73, Issue 10, October 2023, Pages 703–710, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biad077

TED-Ed. (2017). The power of creative constraints - Brandon Rodriguez. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5FL9VTBZzQ

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*ChatGPT was used only to structure the blog after the content was written.