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James Jones |
Professor of Innovation
James Jones
February 2007
James Jones just can't keep his passions to himself—he feels
compelled to evangelize. And if you ask for ideas, he's determined
to oblige.
That's how Jones, a multi-discipline systems engineer in the Center
for Integrated Intelligence Systems (CIIS), became the instructor
for two classes at the company's internal educational resource,
the MITRE Institute: Innovation Apprentice and Technical Negotiations.
When the Institute solicited course proposals in 2005, Jones fired
back an offer to teach a class on innovation. Since then, he has
traveled from his base at MITRE's Colorado Springs site to teach
the class at both our Bedford, Ma., and McLean, Va., campuses, as
well as our Langley, Va., site. The class on negotiation—his
second passion—began this fall.
Favorite Stories
One key to innovation, says Jones, is to "take a look around, and
see what's not there." When he was at MITRE's New Jersey site, working
on the Army's Future Combat Systems project, he responded to a challenge
to improve team productivity. Looking around and noticing the absence
of whiteboards, Jones says, "My idea was to improve communication
by using a set of very large magnetic whiteboards with magnets."
They used these to track team travel schedules and progress on 157
different external systems. This simple device "dramatically increased
productivity," he claims.
His favorite negotiation story is a little more personal, but it
shows that "timing is the extra edge in negotiation," explains Jones.
The day after teaching his class at MITRE-McLean, he took a walk
at the local mall, where art gallery staff were preparing for a
show by the child art prodigy, Alexandra Nechita. When he asked
about buying a book, he was told they were only for people who bought
artwork at the show that night. But he had a plane to catch. Says
Jones:
"There is often a win-win solution. As my flight landed in Denver,
I noticed that it was 9 p.m. EST which meant the gallery's show
had just ended. I called from the plane and made my request again,
after asking if any books were left over. There was an extra and
the gallery staff had it personally signed by Alexandra and sent
to me."
Innovation Techniques
Two quite different methods for fostering innovation are built
into the curriculum of Jones's two-day innovation class: IDEO and
TRIZ. The first is the process used by IDEO, a celebrated product
design company based in Palo Alto, Calif. The second, the brainchild
of Russian engineer Genrich Altshuller, is roughly translated as
the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving.
IDEO's theme is empathy with the customer, and the company now
markets a set of "IDEO method cards"—51 ways to inspire people
to innovate. While IDEO embraces trial and error, TRIZ is much more
systematic, says Jones, and focuses on searching for innovations
from other fields that can be abstracted and applied to the problem
at hand.
Innovation is often born of brainstorming. And brainstorming takes
discipline and practice. It's not easy to propose wild ideas or
listen to others' ideas without interrupting or leaping to judgment.
Jones practices everywhere, even at home, where he and his children
brainstorm on a single topic almost every night at dinner. Eight-year-old
James already has an invention book with more than 100 entries,
says Jones, adding that James and his five-year-old sister Joyce,
"are better innovators than me."
Dramatic Impact
Jones joined MITRE in 1999 after serving in the Air Force, including
four years at the Pentagon. At the company's Eatontown, N.J., site,
Jones was part of teams working on Army Future Combat Systems and
providing support to Operation Enduring Freedom. His zeal for innovation
was inspired by classes he took while earning an Executive Masters
in Technology Management at the Stevens Institute of Technology
in Hoboken, N.J.
He made the move to Colorado Springs in January 2006, just ahead
of a major eastern snowstorm. His work supports the Air Force and
the Northern Command, particularly disaster response and recovery
areas of homeland security and homeland defense. "I think it's probably
some of the most challenging work I've ever done because it might
have the most dramatic impact," he says.
His innovation class is also having a dramatic impact inside MITRE.
All three times, it received glowing reviews. Students also acted
on what they learned. One told Jones she was going to designate
innovation agents in her group. Another reported being energized:
"You've rekindled the system engineer in me. I'm going to [use these
techniques] to come up with some innovative solutions."
—by Shari Dwyer
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