In quality, there is no box to think outside
17 Jul 2026
I watched a program, and someone said, 'think outside the box'. It is a common saying, and I'm willing to make an assumption that lots of you reading this will have heard of it. Generally, it means getting creative or being unconventional. Not being held back by constraints.
You may not know it comes from a puzzle. The puzzle was to draw straight lines through a 3 x 3 grid, connecting all the dots, without lifting the pen. The solution was to go outside the box to form the final line that made solving the puzzle possible.
What thinking outside the box means sounds an awful lot like testers and quality professionals to me. We think broadly, from different perspectives, and get creative with our ideas for how to test something. Constraints are our boundary analysis. So here is my thought for the day.
In quality, there is no box to think outside. There are too many variables of hardware, software, connections, connection speeds, it goes on and on. So forget the box. Free your mind. Think globally, universally, and don't look back for a box.
Agree, disagree? Let me know in the comments
You may not know it comes from a puzzle. The puzzle was to draw straight lines through a 3 x 3 grid, connecting all the dots, without lifting the pen. The solution was to go outside the box to form the final line that made solving the puzzle possible.
What thinking outside the box means sounds an awful lot like testers and quality professionals to me. We think broadly, from different perspectives, and get creative with our ideas for how to test something. Constraints are our boundary analysis. So here is my thought for the day.
In quality, there is no box to think outside. There are too many variables of hardware, software, connections, connection speeds, it goes on and on. So forget the box. Free your mind. Think globally, universally, and don't look back for a box.
Agree, disagree? Let me know in the comments
Ady Stokes
Freelance Consultant
He / Him
MoT Ambassador. Currently semi-retired and freelancing. I am, amongst other things, a writer, speaker, and accessibility advocate. Leeds Chapter Lead. MoT Certs curator and article editor for WonderProxy. Testing wisdom, friendly, testing songs and poems. Great minds think differently. STEC and SQEC Certified. Struggling to write a book about testing mindsets and thinking's application in software development.
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Frederick Vandenbosch
I like to see the box as a representation of the boundaries of your own knowledge and experience. The more you acquire, the bigger the box becomes for you, compared to someone else with perhaps more limited knowledge or experience, in general or in a specific domain.
Just like the puzzle you mention: once you've figured out the way to solve it, it becomes a newly acquired technique you can start applying to new puzzles. It is no longer "out of the box" for you.
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