In the restroom in of the La Patisserie in Portland, Oregon’s Pearl District, someone scrawled Bark Dust is the Root of All Evil. While that may certainly be true, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Edge Cases are the real Root of All Evil.
Ever trustworthy Wikipedia defines Edge Cases as thus:
An edge case is a problem or situation that occurs only at an extreme (maximum or minimum) operating parameter.
But I think I’ll stick with “Root of All Evil.”
Why do Edge Cases get that special place of honor above the love of money, boredom or that special feeling after having a der Wienerschnitzel Chili Dog (you know what I’m talking about)?
Because Edge Cases kill inspiration. They extinguish the bubbling of creative juices with some minutia that will probably never matter anyway.
Let’s say I have an idea. It might not be the best idea, but it’s one I want to vet with my peers, get some feedback on, and see if it is worthy of pursuit. I want to throw it up on the wall and see if something sticks (After all I am from the later end of Generation X, which means I have the Generation Y tendency to Group Think, an increasingly common collaboration mode in the modern workplace).
What happens next has probably occurred to me hundreds of times, and it frustrates and confuses me every time: Someone presents an Edge Case. Some sort of asinine comment or remark is made that seems to focus on such incredible minutia, which only occurs under the most extreme circumstances and to the fewest amount of people, that I am amazed anyone would have the fortitude to even suggest it. After I regain my bearings from being completely dazed and confused by the remark, I suddenly become deflated. I lose my inspiration. I feel I have been made into The Jerk for even suggesting it.
I’ve learned over the years that Edge Cases are not meant to be normal rationale or a casual reminder of some odd circumstance that you’ve neglected. Rather, they usually represent an attempt by someone else to gain, show or exert power in a situation. I’ll explain.
Most Edge Cases are presented in the conference room. You get a cross-functional team together to come up with some solutions to The Problem (insert meeting title here). You have people from all the departments that The Problem touches (plus a few more hangers-on who weren’t invited to the party, but personally felt that The Problem could not be solved without them). You brainstorm ideas, go on tangents and then finally inspiration strikes you.
You have come up with a novel way to solve The Problem! Like an idiot, you blurt out in excitement, “I know what we need to do!” Then you go on to explain your thoughts as quickly as they come to you.
After briefly feigning interest in your idea, that person (the one who wasn’t invited) throws out some BS about your idea not addressing one customer in Cleveland, or about how they tried that solution 1,000 years ago and it didn’t work.
You might try to provide some supporting arguments for your idea, but the battle has already been won and lost. And guess what? You are the loser.
Once the Edge Case was presented a weakness was pointed out in your idea. The others in the room feel that they have permission to start mauling on your idea like a Hyena in the Serengeti. Now everyone points out his own Edge Case, and starts fighting for his respective territory. After a good 15–20 minutes of feeling like a jackass for even suggesting it, you begin sulking in the corner and shut up, never to be heard from again (at least for the duration of this meeting).
What happened? You pissed in someone else’s territory. What’s worse is you did it in plain sight, allowing outsiders to witness the event. You highlighted the weakness of another by coming up with the idea first. In the corporate world that kind of behavior does not come without retribution. And the most common passive aggressive retribution is the presentation of an Edge Case.
I think this problem is aptly summarized by a quote from a movie:
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.
Now you may be surprised by the source (last year’s Pixar film Ratatouille), but the line perfectly summarizes the intent and inherit disdain that the Edge Case promotes:
That is, it is easy to critique and hard to create. When we can’t create, we critique.
Now it many seem a little odd to be quoting a kids’ movie in a business-related article, but why not? In business, we often forget the lessons we teach our children. Things like being tolerant of the unknown or the new, to embrace unconventional thinking, to be creative. I think it’s good to remind ourselves what we try so desperately to teach.
New ideas can be like children—fragile, needing guidance and direction, but full of unbridled optimism and offering an incredibly unique perspective on problems. In the workplace it is our job to be the parents to these ideas, and to foster thinking toward the creation of the new.
Another line from the movie continues along this train of thought:
But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.
I’m often reminded of something Howard Behar once said:
If you stick your head out, you can’t be afraid to have it cut off.
Each of us has the responsibility to stick our heads out proudly. To put forth and encourage new ideas. And lastly, never forget:
For bajebus sake, keep that edge case to yourself!
I think I get what you’re saying here, but I’m not sure I agree. People should foster ideas and all that but you should also be able to challenge ideas that don’t make sense.
If all you’re saying is throwing out random edge cases is a bad way to challenge a decision I agree with you.
I would go further and say that challenging any design decision or idea without thinking it through and providing solid rationale is not cool.
The same could be said for presenting an idea in the first place.
Having said that, I’m of (at least) two minds when it comes to edge cases. On one hand I agree with you, designers, for example, should never concern themselves with that one guy in Cleveland who doesn’t represent their audience as a whole. Or, even more applicable, that one heavy handed stakeholder who sits to close to a project and always has to bring it back to what is most pleasing for her or him.
(The classic “but the CEO likes blue” example comes to mind as an edge case that should be ignored if possible.)
It’s one of the reasons I’m against consensus when it comes to design and all for design dictatorship. You can’t, and shouldn’t, please everyone.
On the other-hand, without edge cases something like Flickr wouldn’t exist. I realize that by even saying that I’m potentially pissing on your article by presenting an edge case of my own…but it has to be said. We all love Flickr.
When it comes to use, of an application for example, it’s good to think about and keep on the look out for edge cases even if you don’t design for them. In the case of Flickr, I don’t think they designed for an edge case as much as they stumbled upon one that turned out to represent what their product should have been from the start.
Edge cases can provide opportunity. More: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?554
One more point. I think it’s important to be able to recognize an edge case when you see it. A problem with young designers, for example, is that they often design from their own point of view and experience without realizing that they, themselves, could be the edge case.
As they develop understanding and empathy for their audiences (and their clients and stakeholders) they tend to get better at designing for those audiences and are able to distance themselves from their own edge case. Still, it can be hard sometimes, even for experienced designers.
And sometimes it works out great. Sometimes by sticking to edge cases, even your own, can result in greatness. Go figure.
Another version: Perfect is the Enemy of Good.
Proponents of Edge Cases (that is, those who will veto an idea until all edge cases are addressed) are likewise those who only want a Perfect Solution.
Knowing - either consciously or unconsciously - that the Perfect Solution won’t come. So they get to do nothing. Nothing, that is, except look important in their ability to present Edge Cases.
You can work this to your advantage. Everyone, after all, feels a certain need to justify themselves. Embrace this, and throw a few obvious strawmen into your New Idea. Give the critics something to criticize, so they can feel good about their ability to point things out. Having knocked down the strawmen you Put There To Be Knocked Down, they’ll move on…
And you can go on creating thing.
My Google Alert for “Howard Behar” linked me to this interesting post. How do you balance blue-sky thinking and creativity with real world testing? Keith Yamashita of Stone Yamashita Partners suggest in his book Unstuck that we name and clarify the process and stage we’re in. Howard Behar, in his new book It’s Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks (which I co-authored), suggests two ideas that are relevant here: 1)Practicing and encouraging independent thinking (“Let the Guy Who Sweeps the Floor Choose the Broom”) and 2) Listen for the truth (“The Walls Talk). He says we need to take the time to listen, even to what’s not said. If you don’t hear those “edge cases,” it doesn’t mean they’ve gone away; they are likely to simmer and bubble up at the next stage.
Thanks for the food for thought.
I did a project for a company once that ran facilitated meetings. They had a process that involved 8 steps. The basic idea was that the first 4 steps were about getting ideas out without judging them, only towards the end did they sort and narrow down the ideas to find the best ones.
They specifically searched out half baked ideas because they believed that it’s easier to make an innovative idea practical than it is to make a practical idea innovative.
Part of their process was removing the opportunity for people to discuss flaws in ideas during the stage when they were collecting possible solutions.
It was a highly structured approach, but it worked really well in the right context.
Sorry if this seems a bit harsh, but this article came off more as sulking to me. It sounds like maybe your ideas weren’t good ones, and you’re upset about it. Edge cases are bad, but in my experience they’re also easily identified and dismissed as such.
The meetings you seem to find yourself in sound horrible and unproductive. Open, honest analysis and a willingness to admit flaws and call-out weak criticisms are both necessary to a productive dialogue.
My advice - when someone describes an Edge Case, call it out as such immediately and move on. If pressed, ask them to quantify the impact of not meeting that Edge Case. If pressed again, explain the Edge Cases has been noted and can / will be reviewed in the future, not to be dealt with there and then.
I share your frustration. Working a lot with startups, I find myself in many idea-generating-exploring-creating meetings with cross-functional teams. Maybe the product manager presents a good idea, the marketing folks get excited, design chimes in with a few things, and pretty soon, the room is buzzing with inspiration. It’s pretty cool.
Then, an engineer (it’s always an engineer, right? - oh, and I’m an engineer, so it’s ok for me to throw stones) pipes up and presents the edge case. And, as you said, the room deflates a bit.
Now, you have to understand engineers. It’s their JOB to find the edge cases. If they don’t, their applications blow up. So they’re just doing what they think is right. Heck, they were probably excited about the thing too up until they thought of the edge case.
My approach is to capture the edge case and offer an opportunity to talk about others. Let the developers have their say. “Yeah, that’s a good edge case. What else are we not thinking of? Let’s get these documented so that we can deal with them when we do the technical design.” Once you get the edge cases out and documented, you can get back to talking about the great idea. “Ok, now that we’ve covered the edge cases, can we agree that the core approach satisfies the business requirements and creates a sweet experience for our users?”
Head nodding follows.
Cross-functional teams are fun and valuable and often lead to great innovation. But I agree. Fixation on edge cases is bad, bad, bad.
This topic reminds me of Thomas Kelley’s thoughtful rant in the book, The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO’s Strategies for Defeating the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization. It’s a good read with practical advice on how to overcome creativity killing hypotheticals in group meetings.
Well said. I have been a Business Technologist for the past 8 years in both IT and Business roles. I have pushed the envelop as far as my stamina could support on numerous occasions. As an example, I help Sun Microsystems evaluate, procure, negogiate, sign, and deploy their first ASP Vendor contract - - - 3 years after they began the marketing that ASPs were the wave of software future!
I know what it means to fight through use case “rat holes.” Here is one excercise that has helped me :
Regards,
Chris Cranley http://www.hirechriscranley.com