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Expanding Your Box

April 15, 2008

My wife and I were sitting on the couch the other night and she was complaining that her sweat pants were fitting to tight and cutting into her stomach. Oh did I mention that she is seven months pregnant with our first daughter. Anyway, we were sitting there talking and she suddenly asks ‘Don’t you have sweat pants?’. I said ’sure’ and she went off to look in the closet. One thing you should know is that even pregnant, I have still have 100+ pounds on my wife. She came back later extremely happy. She had found a pair of my sweat pants and had them pulled up over the baby bulge and fitting comfortably. She looked funny, but she didn’t care. She had solved her problem.

Why do I bring this up? My wife is one to follow her usual processes. Clothes don’t fit = go shopping. She has bought her share of materity cloths, but is becoming more concerned about saving money. She had a problem, but didn’t want to follow her normal process and go shopping. She began thinking outside her ‘box’ of solutions can came up with something that resolved her problem and saved money. (Yeah!)

When developing solutions to IT problem, it is easy to get stuck in your ‘box’ of solutions. It is easier to stay in your comfort zone and create solutions based on what you have done before rather than venturing out and trying new things. I fight with this all the time. I recently had a client that needed to add an admin page to view user account information. They did not have reporting or direct access to the database. If I add a page to the site, then I have to secure it from other users. This can quickly add up to some development time doing the standard solution. What if I extend my thinking outside my ‘box’. They have SharePoint which is used to feed list information to the web site. Why not add the view user page in SharePoint? Security is already setup and they know how to use it.

With the pace that technology and development tools are changing today, it is hard to keep up with everything. It seems like there is a ‘best new way’ of doing something each year. Don’t get comfortable in your ‘box’. Try new technologies. Think of how this new tool can be used to solve problems in place of your old way. Read articles, attend user groups and talk to other people about the new technologies. Get an idea of what they do and how they might be useful to you. You might be surprised on how well they ‘fit’ your problems and can be added comfortably to your ‘box’.

Jeff

 

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Written by Jeff Rollins · Filed Under Information Technology 

Comments

2 Responses to “Expanding Your Box”

  1. Jodie on April 15th, 2008 9:21 am

    Not only does thinking “outside of the box” keep our ideas fresh, but it also keeps us interested in what we deliver and provides higher value to our customers.

  2. Melissa Park on April 15th, 2008 12:45 pm

    Looking at problems from all angles ensures that we are considering a problem using our whole brain- not just a sliver of thought capabilities. Continuing to be knowledgeable about new products, methodologies, tools, techniques, etc. and figuring out ways to add them to our personal arsenal will keep our skills competitive and relevant.

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