As designers, we’re always working within constraints.
Sometimes they’re practical, time, scope, or feasibility. Other times, they’re strategic or political; a top-down directive, an executive preference, or an inherited idea that doesn’t feel quite right.
When that happens, the question isn’t whether the idea is perfect. It’s how to make something workable within the situation you’re in. The goal is to identify the version of the idea that can succeed, given the constraints, rather than waiting for ideal conditions that never come or building an idea you know won’t work.
This skill is one of the most underrated design skills: the ability to stay creative inside the box. It requires holding two truths at once: seeing what’s wrong with an idea while still believing there’s a way to make it work. This tension is where great ideas can emerge from intentional design thinking.
Psychologically, this kind of thinking connects to a few well-studied approaches:
Reframing
- Changing the way a problem is defined so new paths emerge.
Constraint-driven creativity
- Using limits as triggers for innovation instead of obstacles.
Lateral thinking
- Finding sideways moves when the direct route is blocked.
Instead of rejecting constraints, we can engage with them and look for the openings they create. The paths that don’t yet exist but may work. Sometimes we can reshape the original idea, while other times it leads to something entirely different but more grounded and real.
We can find the winning idea within a set of constraints by calibrating and homing in on what resonates; sensing what’s possible, and what’s necessary. It’s how great designers turn imperfect conditions into something surprisingly good.
The bricolage mindset
The ability to find a winning idea, especially when faced with constraints or a flawed existing solution, is at the heart of an entrepreneurial strategy known as bricolage. In innovation research, bricolage describes how people create progress in resource-scarce or highly constrained environments.
Instead of waiting for perfect tools or timing, you start with what’s already here. You gather what exists, half-formed ideas, old prototypes, even things that didn’t work, and use them as raw material for new ideas. Design becomes less about invention and more about transformation.
Embracing the bricolage mindset
At its core, bricolage requires an adaptive, resourceful mindset.
Refuse to be constrained
- Bricoleurs resist being limited by their environment. They push past obstacles by reframing them as prompts rather than barriers.
Shift from need to availability
- Instead of asking, “What do I need?” we ask, “What do I already have?” This shift, from seeking new inputs to re-seeing existing ones, is what makes progress possible even in constrained conditions.
Retrospective assessment
- The process often starts by looking back at what’s already on hand: past explorations, unused assets, existing patterns, or even half-finished concepts. By revisiting and re-examining these, we start to see new possibilities emerge.
Using bricolage processes to find a winning idea
The practical side of bricolage lies in how those available resources are recombined, tested, and shared.
Recombination of resources
- The bricoleur makes do by combining existing resources for new purposes. What’s ordinary in one context becomes novel in another.
Improvisation and experimentation
- Design and execution often happen simultaneously, an iterative, improvisational process where ideas evolve through doing.
Leveraging networks
- While early studies focused on individuals, more recent research highlights network bricolage, where alliances and existing relationships become extensions of one’s resource pool.
Working with a flawed or inherited idea
Bricolage is especially powerful when the initial idea is weak or externally imposed. Instead of discarding it, the bricoleur treats its components as raw materials for recombination.
Ideational bricolage
- This involves reusing and reshaping old ideas into new ones, turning a “bad” idea into the basis for a better one.
Organizational bricolage
- In larger systems, this might mean rearranging existing structures, workflows, or roles to create something new, building on what already exists rather than starting over.
Innovation as outcome
- Whether applied to products, services, or business models, bricolage consistently turns imperfect inputs into surprisingly effective results.
To put bricolage in perspective, it helps to compare it with two other ways people create under uncertainty: causation, which starts from a fixed goal and plans backwards, and effectuation, which begins from available means and evolves forward. Together, they reveal different ways of finding progress when conditions are unclear.
| Feature | Bricolage | Causation | Effectuation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting point | Existing resources (often constrained) | A defined outcome or goal | Available means and resources |
| Strategy | Recombine what’s at hand to reach a goal | Choose means to achieve a fixed outcome | Choose among possible outcomes achievable with given means |
| Decision-making | Refuses to be constrained; thrives in limited environments | Exploits opportunities in stable, known markets | Explores opportunities in uncertain or emerging markets |
| Opportunity | Creates and transforms markets through resource recombination | Assumes opportunities already exist | Creates new markets through flexible adaptation |
Bricolage and entrepreneurial thinking
At its core, entrepreneurial thinking is about creating value under uncertainty, finding ways forward when resources are limited, conditions are unclear, or traditional paths don’t apply.
Bricolage is one expression of that mindset.
It’s the mechanics of entrepreneurial thinking in action: instead of waiting for ideal conditions, the bricoleur acts, experiments, and recombines what already exists to create something new.
In entrepreneurship research (notably by Baker and Nelson, 2005), bricolage is recognized as a strategy for innovation in resource-constrained environments. Success often comes from reframing constraints as opportunities, making do with what’s at hand, combining existing resources in new ways, and iterating through action.
In this sense, bricolage is entrepreneurial creativity under constraint, a way of thinking that thrives in ambiguity, helps you adapt quickly, and generates momentum in scenarios of scarcity rather than focusing on limitations.
If you zoom out, entrepreneurial thinking is the broader philosophy; bricolage is the practical, creative method it often takes.
Practicing constraint-driven creativity
Bricolage is a mindset you can practice. When you’re navigating constraints, a murky direction, or inherited ideas, the challenge isn’t just finding a way forward; it’s keeping your thinking open enough to see one.
Here are two tools you can use to get started: a set of beliefs and a set of reframing prompts. These are mental anchors and questions you can use when you feel stuck on a project or when it feels overdetermined. Use them to shift your focus from what’s missing to what’s possible, and to uncover the opportunities that constraints quietly create.