The Barriers of Creativity in Programming

To enjoy the benefits of soft skills, we need to find the right pieces of the puzzle and put them in the right place. One of the most important parts of this puzzle is creativity. That’s because it is a feature that makes us free from time and space limitations and gives us wings to fly. Ideation and innovation are important principles for programmers, but their main requirement is creativity. Creativity is one of the main weapons of a successful programmer. If you want to know the barriers to creativity in programming so that you can overcome them and be equipped with this powerful weapon, read on.

Creativity Vs. Innovation

Creativity involves seeing and experiencing the world around us in a distinctive way.

When we use creativity, we can find hidden patterns in phenomena, situations, and behaviours. Then we can offer new solutions based on these patterns and act according to them.

This feature is the most powerful and fundamental human capacity that allows him to make the impossible possible. All man made technologies, inventions, arts, etc, it is a manifestation of the creativity and innovation of humankind.

For this reason, recognizing the barriers to creativity is crucial. These obstacles act like scissors that pick up the programmer’s creativity wings and prevent him from flying.

However, creativity alone cannot lead to success. It is just a tool to achieve innovation! Innovation is the spread of creativity and means the implementation of new or improved ideas.

Many people worldwide come up with thousands of thoughts every day, but how many of them become somebody like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates?

Creativity Vs. Innovation

How to use creativity

To use your creativity, you should think well first to cultivate different ideas. Then it is time to innovate based on valuable and mature ideas. The good idea for implementation is the ones that can make a good change in our life. 

It is important to note that action is very important in turning creativity into innovation. If you have an idea but do not put it into practice, you are more a dreamer than a creative person!

The value of creativity and innovation in programming

Creativity in programming means discovering new solutions to achieve an optimal and efficient result. Creativity is what sets a programmer apart from a typist! Creative programming means writing code in new ways and finding new methods that no one has ever thought of. If you do not have creativity in programming, What you do is typing code that you have memorized, or someone else has created.

The programming process is very much like a work of art, which needs creativity and love. You are not told how to do the job; what the clients or your boss needs you is to do your duty perfectly. In other words, the result is much more important than what you do.  It’s up to you to decide what methods, paths, and tools to use to get the job done. There is never a single way to achieve results in the programming process! So you have the role of a creator in the programming world who innovates based on creativity.

Identifying the barriers to creativity in programming

If you are one of those people who think that they are not creative enough, be sure to read this section carefully. We examine the main obstacles to creativity here. Obstacles that if you face them, your creativity will not grow and you may think you are not a creative person.

Barriers to creativity are generally divided into three categories:

  • Individual
  • Social 
  • Organization

In the field of programming, individual and organizational barriers play a more crucial role. Some of the most important of these barriers are:

Over-reliance on logic:

Those who rely too much on rational thinking often have difficulty being creative. You have to realize that not everything is achieved by logic. When logic does not yet have a reason for a new value, a spark, feeling, or dream may become a reality through experiment.

Stress

Creative work requires a calm mind and body. When you are stressed, you constantly think about your stressful situation, and can not use your creativity to come up with new ideas.

Creativity
Creativity

Fear of failure

people may avoid presenting their ideas because of the fear of failure, criticism, or ridicule of others. This is one of the main barriers for not being creative and innovative in programming.

Lack of self-confidence:

Some people have low self-esteem due to poor personal and social skills. Lack of self-confidence can have many reasons, including low self-esteem, shyness, etc., all of which go hand in hand to deprive you of creativity and the effort to be innovative.

Decentralization:

As we said, creativity requires a calm mind, a mind that can focus on one subject. So those who can not focus are more likely not to be creative. To be creative, we must be able to classify our minds correctly and analyze a variety of approaches and methods.

Tendency to gain others’ approval:

 By default, human beings like to gain the approval and encouragement of others. Sometimes this factor, instead of acting as a positive stimulus, causes us to avoid challenging environments and issues because we don’t want to be judged by others. consequently, we are more looking for safe, proven, and common methods and consider using creativity in work as a risk.

Organizational Barriers:

 The most important factor in the flourishing of creativity of individuals are companies, organizations, and in general the work office. If you are not allowed to fail due to gaining experience and try new methods, your creativity will be lost. Some of these creativity barriers are wrong policies, wrong organizational culture, not being criticized, and so on.

If you have encountered these creative obstacles, do not worry. The good news is that creativity, like many other soft skills, is learnable. This means that you can overcome these obstacles and become a creative person by via doing the right exercises. 

Do you have any other suggestions for removing these barriers?


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