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How Intelligent Constraints Drive Creativity

January 30, 2013

How Intelligent Constraints Drive Creativity: “


Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer offered the same opinion writing for Businessweek in 2006: ‘Constraints shape and focus problems, and provide clear challenges to overcome as well as inspiration. Creativity loves constraints, but they must be balanced with a healthy disregard for the impossible.’





That’s anecdotal evidence that well-designed constraints lead to creative success. But there’s academic research data on this phenomenon too. For example, a study conducted at the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Social Psychology proved that tough obstacles can prompt people to open their minds, look at the ‘big picture,’ and make connections between things that are not obviously connected. This is an ability is called ‘global processing,’ which is the hallmark of creativity.

Participants in the study played a computer maze game. One group played a version that had an obstacle blocking one of the routes, which significantly limited options and made it much harder to discover an escape. A second group had an easier maze with no obstacles. Both groups were then given a standard creativity test containing what psychologists call remote associates puzzles. Three words appeared on the screen (for example, ‘plate,’ ‘shot,’ and ‘broken’) and the subjects were asked to find a fourth word that connected them all.


An intelligent obstacle or constraint is one laden with creative tension, whether stated in the form of a well-defined problem (‘How might we simultaneously decrease both inventory and backorders?’) or a challenging goal (NASA’s 1990s mission to land a rover on Mars in half the time and a tenth the budget of the previous mission). An intelligent constraint informs creative action by outlining the ‘sandbox’ within which people can play and guides that action not just by pointing out what to pursue but perhaps more importantly what to ignore.



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