Module 11•Unit 6 of 6•10 min

Case Study: Constraints Drive Creativity

In April 1970, an oxygen tank exploded aboard Apollo 13, 200,000 miles from Earth. Three astronauts crowded into the tiny Lunar Module as a lifeboat. Soon a new killer emerged: carbon dioxide was building up to lethal levels. The Lunar Module's round CO2 scrubbers couldn't handle three men, and the Command Module's spare scrubbers were square - they would not fit. It was, literally, the problem of fitting a square peg into a round hole, with lives on the line.

The ultimate constrained brief

Flight director's team was handed the most brutal constraint imaginable: build a device to make the square filter fit the round system, using only the items physically available on the spacecraft - and do it before the crew suffocated. No new parts. No shopping list. Only what was already aboard.

How the constraint drove the solution

Click each step to reveal what happened.

The lesson

Apollo 13 is the Eames principle at its most extreme: recognising the constraints precisely - "only these objects exist" - is what made a solution possible at all. When you feel starved of options, remember that a sharp limitation is often exactly what focuses the mind on the answer that was there all along.

Discuss

Where could an artificial 'only these resources exist' constraint force your team to a more creative answer than an open-ended brief would?

Try this at work this week

Take a stuck problem and give the team a Apollo-style constraint: solve it using only tools and resources you already have on hand today - nothing new. Note how the limitation sharpens the ideas.

Sources

Kranz, G., Failure Is Not an Option, 2000 (Apollo 13 mission control).
NASA, Apollo 13 Mission Operations Report, 1970.
Lovell, J. & Kluger, J., Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, 1994.

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