Out-of-the-Box Thinking, Inside the Box

As designers, we’ve long been told to “think out of the box.” But over the years, I’ve come to believe that most of our impact doesn’t happen outside the box — it happens within it.

The boxes are real: organizational constraints, compliance, technology limitations, budgets, timelines, and entrenched systems.

In my journey — whether building a design practice from scratch at Wipro Digital or leading a design and research team at Fractal — the real creativity has always come from working within the box, not against it. And today, with AI reshaping our practice, this mindset is more relevant than ever. For young designers, this is both a challenge and an opportunity: to see boundaries not as limits, but as launchpads for impact.

Thinking Out of the Box Within the Box: A Transformation Moment at Wipro

I was part of one of the most important programs led by Wipro — an enterprise-wide transformation touching almost every function. The table was overflowing with stakeholders: SAP consultants, E&Y, design agencies, engineering teams, SMEs, senior Wipro leaders, and the IT team.

Even moving a single pixel felt impossible. Team morale was low. Many believed the program would drag on endlessly. The “box” of bureaucracy, silos, and scale…