Innovation through cross-departmental collaboration projects

In this episode you will hear about the powerful learning and innovative thinking that happens when students from different departments and academic programs come together to work on industry impact projects. Episode 4 features a conversation with Jim Ducay, who joined the University of Denver to launch an industry innovation program after spending 25 years as a senior-level technology business leader for companies like Avaya Networking, SES Americom, Ameritech, Bell Atlantic and Nynex. Jim shares his experience bringing students together from across the DU campus to work directly with local companies on innovation projects and how these experiences have tremendous impact on our students and our communities. Listen as Jim shares successes, challenges and a few tips for students who are interested in being involved in innovation projects or faculty considering launching programs of this type.  

Transcript

Jim Ducay:   0:04
and diversity of thought comes from people with different experiences different backgrounds, different disciplines, different whatever. Because if you put Vivat State people in a room, you're gonna come up with nothing more than what one person can contribute. But you put five different people in a room. You're gonna change the world.

Cindy Cragg:   0:24
Welcome to elevate Ed. This'd is a space for conversations around, elevating teaching practices and applied learning for nontraditional students from the Mile High city of Denver, Colorado. This podcast is brought to you by the University of Denver's College for Professional and Continuing Education University College, where adult learners have been pursuing career focused credentials since 1938 e. Have in the studio with me today. Jim Duke, a gym, is a proven technology business leader, having applied his executive management skills in marketing, engineering, finance and operations in running start up turn around and high growth companies for more than 25 years. This includes running business operations at A via networking, a new industry leader in software based fabric technology and being the chief operating officer at S. E S America, which was one of the largest commercial satellite operators in the world He also has held senior level positions at Ameritech, Bell Atlantic and Nynex. Academically, he has an MBA in marketing and finance from University of Chicago. And that degree compliments his master and bachelor of science degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois. Jim came to the University of Denver about a year ago and is the creator of an industry innovation program. And that is what we're going to talk about today. Welcome, Jim. Good morning. So, uh, talk a little about these innovation experiences that I have been involved. I had some students that were involved with you over the last quarter, so I'd like to just start by what inspired that vision. Yeah. Let me

Jim Ducay:   2:11
tell you how I ended up here and then I is your description. I've been running, started, Turn around. I think business of my whole career last part of it was actually spending a company out of the parent. And my wife and I were sitting in Princeton, New Jersey, thinking about what we're going to do. I have three sons. They're all out west here. So it was time for us to move to Denver. And I had the opportunity to meet with the dean of the engineering school. When we sat down, we start talking about innovation and conversation. One great. He connected me with, uh, the chief innovation officer and ultimately to the dean of the business school. And we sat down. We said, Listen, if we're gonna do something, how do we do it and what we, uh what we agreed to was that there's multiple parts to it. One is that we need to think about this and across campus manner. If you think about an executive management team at a corporation or the CFO does the CMO, there's a CEO. It isn't just one discipline. Remember going early on going to an event, uh, an entrepreneur event and then she has to meet the team and going around the table. So demure majors. And it was computer science, mathematics, computer science, computer science. That's just not the way companies or structure. So keep part of this is we've got a full across campus, is done engineering programs on a business program, but doesn't a good liberal arts. The second part of it is is that we wanna work with real companies on real problems from that perspective, it's getting in is learning about the industry that's learning about the company and and ultimately taken on the strategic initiative that's there and after. I'll talk about a little bit later. But that could be many different things. The last part of this is that we want to have industry impact. So what we don't want to do is a simple business case where let's do it, let's complete it, pay each other on the back and go. We really want to have industry, in fact, which means we want to work on real things. And I told my students, You know, I want to see the particles in the Wall Street Journal and they look at me a little bit a little bit

Cindy Cragg:   4:07
over my over well,

Jim Ducay:   4:09
but But the thing is, is that it's possible because we're talking about innovation, and there's nothing that keeps anybody from innovating and changing the way that an industry or in environments work

Cindy Cragg:   4:18
well. And these code words that you bring together that include undergraduate and graduate students from all across campus. These are pretty unique cool warts and eso talk about how these code words function a bit differently with these innovation experiences, then, you know, like an internship or what we traditionally think of as experiential and opportunities and hire.

Jim Ducay:   4:46
You know, it's interesting because it's a little bit of a jigsaw, because when the teams come together, they are representing different disciplines. So there's an engineering student there may be financed in the marketing student, and it's really a jigsaw coming together and how they need to work. So that's interesting to them because they typically been taking engineering classes or accounting classes a semester. That's a major shift for them key pieces that they wanted from each other. And they learn about the industry because before we can even take on a project, we need to learn the industry. So we have a project with a major distributor, and students actually learned, you know, would a traditional distribution company does and how it operates and what's challenges are, You know, that was before we could even take on the key projects. So they're learning differently. They're learning from each other as part of this. You know, I give you an example of why I bring in some outside speakers, just a cover specific topic specifically about the distribution company project. I brought in a speaker who was an expert in multi level pricing, Okay, just a crucial praising. So he won through. Here's how your prices a manufacturer distribution, reseller and so on. And you're trying to run a promotion through it. And here's how you manage different currencies around the world and actually get an engineering student come up to me afterwards and say, You know what? I never knew pricing was so complicated, and I looked at him and said, Well, you know what? I'm not looking for you to become an expert. I just want you to have an appreciation for it. So is he sitting in a cross functional team? He's recognizing that the marketing person isn't just throwing numbers out there, that there's a lot of analysis pickles along. Would that imprint value to the team?

Cindy Cragg:   6:28
Terry? Yeah, and he's a real life experiences, thes applied experiences and learning through these applied experiences. Not only do we know that, uh, that students hold onto the information better they learn better by applying that information. But it also just makes learning a lot more interesting. And and I love the component that you have woven in the third piece that you were talking about when you were kind of introducing what you've been doing here on the D U campus. But the piece about having an impact that's so important to students of all ages, I think even in a post traditional students like the ones that we work with the University College on the graduate level, but all the way down to, you know, freshman sophomore in underground. So I think it's really powerful the experiences that

Jim Ducay:   7:21
you're able provided, you know, and one of the things that I had to it is that it's not 1/4 A testicles. 3/4 right? So starts and fall, winter and spring in each quarter has its own delivery ble back to the client. So it's a 30. We converse, So this is not something where they get in eight weeks. 10 weeks later, it's over. It just keeps going. So they're immersed in it, which is great for them because they're really learning it, the industry in the company and in a very deep level. But the other part of it to that is to get some 30 weeks of exposure to the company. And a lot of companies that we talked to are very interested in creating that employment pipeline. You know, howto work with universities to bring students and and just give some of the opportunity to see the students actually operate and their function, whether it's marketing, are financed or engineering. And if you think about that in terms of you know what there are other alternatives are where they may bring somebody in front of you. And maybe that student meets with somebody for 30 minutes. Five different people, or maybe they have a summer internships was eight weeks here. They've got 30 weeks to see somebody and understand what their capabilities are. Bill will sit there and say, You know it. I like Sally, and I'd really like to make an offer for selling For me, that's the success of the program because it creates creates continuity from the project into their career, going forward

Cindy Cragg:   8:35
without a doubt. There's a movement here on the BU campus towards community engaged learning, and this is I definitely see what you're doing as a component of it has a lot of the components, I would say, of community engaged learning and one of the things that is often a challenge with community engaged learning is the tighter timeline that it is just on 1/4 system and often students and the company's everybody wants to keep going that 10 weeks is often just enough time to build up some momentum and for people to figure out how the team generals and to understand the industry for the organization or the nuances of the organization. So I think it's brilliant that that you really pushed this idea that it needs to be more than 1/4 2 cores that really needs to be the full 30 weeks. I

Jim Ducay:   9:34
appreciate the kind

Cindy Cragg:   9:35
words. Well, I think I think that it is really important for the learning and for everybody to come out out of it with outcomes that they need and want from it for it. TOC structured properly

Jim Ducay:   9:50
Your point that is right on. You know, we've all been part of teams. We all know it takes a little bit of time to for a team to jail, all right, especially one of bringing people who've never known each other because they've been a different college ist right, different disciplines. So So just for them to get to know each other what their roles are, how the project's gonna work, You know that. And the self takes a couple of weeks. So if you think about it, you know, if this is a 1/4 program now we're down from 10 were down to aid, right? Right. So just having that continuity just helps

Cindy Cragg:   10:22
well, in the value you know, back to what you were saying about the one student not having any idea what when Enterprising, forjust reason channels. And you've told me other similar stories throughout this last quarter and even the previous year, when you were piloting the program about how that exposure for students is so beneficial for them to realize step in somebody else's shoes or see what goes on for somebody in a different department or with a different role and how it all weaves together. Or like you say, the puzzle pieces fit together. And without that, then you have, ah, problem that is so commonplace out in the marketplace of, you know, all these silo departments, right? And so what you're doing is getting it in people's heads very early on that the silo ing doesn't work, you know, or it's not the most productive way. The most efficient and productive way is to bring these collaborative teams together and get everybody on the same page.

Jim Ducay:   11:27
Yeah, exactly. It's just the experience of working with a company. No, this is important because when I think about college education, nothing that we're trying to do here is the deluded engineering program. Were curriculum or finance curriculum. What we're trying to do is to provide something over the top. So they just still learn all those tools. You have the calculus we have, you know, counting one of one, you're still getting it. But now here's the opportunity to apply it. And one of my favorite stories is they're having a conversation with the student, you know, end of the quarter and looking at me and saying, You know, 20 years old, I'm a junior. I'm presenting to the executive management team of Ah, Fortune 1 50 company. Uh, and they're listening to me. And as I look back it up and they said, Why does that surprise you? And he just shrugged his shoulders, and I said, You know, it's all about providing value.

Cindy Cragg:   12:20
That's right.

Jim Ducay:   12:21
And it doesn't matter for 20 years old or 40 years old. If you take a philosophy that every day you're gonna go in and create value, then the things we're gonna hand

Cindy Cragg:   12:30
you're going to be respected. That's Exane appreciation.

Jim Ducay:   12:32
That's exactly it. So he was making the transition between okay, I've know a lot of things. How do I apply them? And that's what this program is about. I couldn't be happier to hear that comment, because at that point, um, I had an impact on that student.

Cindy Cragg:   12:46
Well, I also know that from my role, you know, both as faculty and is the director of a program that for these, you know, experiential learning, innovative community engaged any any of these type of learning experiences. The reflection piece is really critical for people to the students to really be able to look back and process and really think through the experience that they've had and all the ways that they have been touched and touched others and other components of the product or the organization over the last quarter. So talk about some of the things that you learn, even if it's not through a formal reflection assessment. But even just hearing the students talk to one another as they're reflecting on their experiences,

Jim Ducay:   13:42
you know what? It's a process. So when I think about students coming in, some of them are quite sure exactly what it is.

Cindy Cragg:   13:49
It's part of a project. Well, I think at the beginning you don't know. I just know what if that's true, that's true.

Jim Ducay:   13:55
You know, the biggest challenge that I have is that every project is different. Working on projects from robotic food delivery to working strategic issues in the real estate industry, also working and transportation projects working with municipalities. So in that case, we have a client who has multiple clients, so everyone's a little bit different, and, uh, that is very dynamic. And ah, it's ambiguous. So, you know, when I first things that tell students, I if you're not comfortable without a very exact syllabus than this is in the right place for you because I can't tell you in a week a we're gonna be in Chapter 13 and you're gonna do that, even number problems. It's our findings. They're going to define where we go with the project,

Cindy Cragg:   14:42
which is very similar to not every industries, certainly, but these days, I think more common than not that you need to be very nimble with your work, and you need to be able to pivot quickly to assess toe, look a look at the data and figure out the information that's coming in and how that's going. Thio. Steer the direction that you go

Jim Ducay:   15:05
exactly, and I talked about the Jigsaw before. So think about meeting in a team meeting and having people bring in their information and maybe engineering oriented by ancillary and the sociology, or get it all coming to the table. And what we do is we spent a lot of times storyboard. Andrea, is that your reasoning? Storyboarding this because we're trying to flush out the details, and when you're dealing specifically an a blank sheet of paper mode, we have to find out. Where should we put her and her sister were? Shouldn't we? You know, I've had students who keep him a topic, and they just girl down, you know, 100 feet underground, cycle that love. But let's lay out the landscape. Let's understand what this story is, and then let's determine where we need to go deeper to fill out a story or challenge it or validate something that you know we are hypothesis. There's the whole process that comes along with it. So from a student perspective, it's more than just didn't we provide quality product to the client? It's the process that they're learning as well. Howto work with a client What's the tools that you use, like storyboarding? You know, how do you work with people in different disciplines? Well, you're accountable for your piece, and the rest of team is counting on you to bring your piece to the back to the table.

Cindy Cragg:   16:21
I would think that creating that narrative not only helps the team see the vision or uncover the vision as the process is going along, but it also when you do go to meet with the clients, having that narrative amongst the team makes those meetings, I think more effective and more powerful.

Jim Ducay:   16:44
You know, one of things that say is that our primary responsibility is to provide a quality product to the client. Um, a couple things. They're one to me. The recording, they're not a sponsor, it's not a donation. Their hind. We need to provide value to them because that's what keeps this thing sustainable. And if we're gonna have industry impact, then it's got to be something Israel. But every time I say that quality product at a client, I always step back and think. But this is about the education process, but the fact that matters there one in the same. If we deliver a quality product to the client, there has been a quality education process because they had to pull the right pieces together and they had to come up with the right conclusions. What interesting thing here and how I would differentiate. What we're doing versus business cases is that it students get together working business cases. It gets the end of the quarter and somebody is judging and whether it's a good report or not. And then it was filed, right? You know when the interesting thing here is that the students are getting industry, and is it good, is it not? And it's not just at one point. The way we structure that projects is that we typically have a workshop. Weeks typically have a perimeter readout week six or seven, and then we get the final presentation on Week 10 and we do that every quarter because every quarter answers on on the liberals, so they're constantly getting feedback. We're constantly working with the client to understand. Here's what we found. Here's what we're presenting getting feedback from them as two things for us to think about things for us to focus on. So it's a very interactive process and at least distance that have been involved so far. One. They love going to the client because they get an opportunity to see what real work environment is. And again, they're learning so much just listening to the quiet learning about what working in a real world is getting them out of out of the classroom.

Cindy Cragg:   18:31
Yeah, well, I was just thinking about how much more impactful it would be to deliver your ideas or a presentation to a room full of really industry people, you know, and to be ableto watch there expression and their response that would it would stick with you a bit more than doing a presentation that you know, that you uploaded a file online and then, you know, even if you didn't get the feedback that you were hoping for from the instructor, you know, looking at somebody's face and seeing either the pleasure of the happiness, the information that they really like, what you're doing or on the office, it in the spectrum that maybe you hadn't hit the mark. That is gonna have so much more of an impact on you, then a very flat, one dimensional response to the work that you've done

Jim Ducay:   19:31
exactly. And we've been lucky to have very good clients across a variety of different industries. But when we do meet with them, it isn't just sitting with one person. They typically bring teams together.

Cindy Cragg:   19:41
So pretty intimidating, e even for some of the older students, the graduate students, I would still think that that's relatively intimidating to be in that setting.

Jim Ducay:   19:51
You know what they've done very well.

Cindy Cragg:   19:52
I don't have the things

Jim Ducay:   19:54
they've done very well. The clients have been great. They bring in their, you know, their teams that often are made up of different disciplines. So, you know, is trying to create that this isn't one time presentation words you know, you get in a year, you get a beer, you get to see, but this is a process

Cindy Cragg:   20:12
in your stable and they're establishing relationships with each other and with the client

Jim Ducay:   20:17
exactly manage like that here clients were students were reaching out to the client independently, not coming through me, you know, in the asking of, you know, do you have information on this? Can you put me in contact with somebody else who can address this issue?

Cindy Cragg:   20:30
That's parade to see that enthusiasm and that commitment that I'm sure is a heightened level than what you would get for just a hypothetical assignment, like building out

Jim Ducay:   20:40
a plan. It's all part of the experience, and it really starts off with that first workshop. Yeah, so it's less Net. First Workshop is in our team going in and presenting its our team, going in and listening the quiet, long to talk about their business. They talk about their challenges. You know what they're facing, what they're thinking. So

Cindy Cragg:   20:58
that's class. That kickoff meeting is exactly kickoff meeting what

Jim Ducay:   21:01
you're getting at information so they're not put on the spot. They have an opportunity here. They have an opportunity to me, so it's a little less intimidating, you know, the next time they come in because they've got a chance to meet the person. Nicotine in some cases may have a really interacted with.

Cindy Cragg:   21:16
Well, I know that they're so many nuances and moving parts to these innovation code words and these projects that you've been pulling together and you've talked about all of the really wonderful aspects of them. But I'm sure it's not all roses and Rameau's right. Maybe it is. But I think that, you know, talk about some of the challenges that might come up if somebody looks thio, put something like this into practice in their own program or their own institution.

Jim Ducay:   21:49
You know, I mentioned, the biggest challenge is that they're all different. Yeah, and it's dead steel with ambiguity. I guess if I had to think that one step further, it's, you know, it's a new team. People coming together it doesn't matter if they're in a workforce. That doesn't matter, you know, at the university level, Undergrad versus Gradual Oh is still in about an aging a team and understanding dynamics of the team and who the leaders are and and, you know, how do you break up the work? Even within specific disappoints, it's ah ongoing management challenge from that perspective is to get the best out of the team. But if you think about a CEO running a company where he's got the best engineers, the CTO, he's got the best finance person as the CFO and so on. You know the CEO's job. Is that about trying to make you better engineer The CEO's job is really about How do you create that team and get the most out of that group of people that have very individual skills? And this is really no different than that.

Cindy Cragg:   22:46
Yeah, well, and your approach is so encouraging and so positive, and you really do an amazing job of drawing out of the students. I think skills that maybe they didn't even know that they had that to contribute to the group.

Jim Ducay:   23:03
A couple of stories, one was a student. Uh who, uh, you spoke to him Bit pointed my way. Marketing, communication student we're working out and I'll t Internet of things type of projects. It was very technical in the first part of the quarter, and, uh, that students very quiet and I would talk to them about Come on, you know, you got to participate. You gotta you gotta talk up. And it wasn't Philly on 1/4 that we really had a good conversation where he felt very intimidated by the discussion being technically, he wasn't technical, that he felt like he was. He didn't want to embarrass himself by asking a question, but probably the questions he was gonna ask you The same questions that other people handle mind set but was most interesting out of that and is actually a conversation you had with him was the fact that he realized that he could do a better job marketing. Now, as we go into the winter quarter, because he understands the technology. So where he first thought, What do I need to be here? You know, this is not something I have any interest in is gonna prepare him better for when we do get to the marketing.

Cindy Cragg:   24:07
Sure, he started on the ground floor with the whole group and because he had that foundational knowledge and that was actually through written reflection that he had submitted as a part of the credit part of the course work that he was doing. And in that reflection, yes, he definitely was connecting the dots and he was seeing that being a part of all of those meetings where he felt like, Why am I here? Why do I need to know this? That he was going to be able thio market that ANA in a much more compelling way because he had all that information, too. So, yeah,

Jim Ducay:   24:44
just a great story. Because when I look at so what did they get out of it? They don't necessarily realize that they want or weak Fine. And I've had one student actually changes Major because of it just getting experience. It's scary, you know, Not everybody goes to college knowing exactly what they wanted. Thio, part of this is, is giving them the opportunity to see what's out there, seeing how things work so that he could make decisions. You know, I've had students have come back and said, Listen, you know, when I talked about this project of my job interview because reviewer was asked him and saying, I know he's taken all the classes, I could see your transcripts. I could see a great point average, but tell me what you've done and talked about the project they worked on in the interaction with other disciplines in the rest. And it's valued from the outside because companies want students who have been doing things in their discipline but also know how to work with others.

Cindy Cragg:   25:38
Yeah, the resonating resume building potential of this huge. And I know personally, I've never been on an interview where I wasn't asked to illustrate the points that I was making by way of examples of what you know, things that I have done says the value of that is huge

Jim Ducay:   25:59
said I had one student tell me because I didn't know anything about I'll t until I can't many girls now I can talk intelligently about it.

Cindy Cragg:   26:07
That's incredible. Well, I always like to ask. At the end of the podcast episode, I liketo ask whoever I'm interviewing if they can give three tips, three best practices for getting the most out of launching an innovation program or doing something like this. So what kind of tips could you give

Jim Ducay:   26:31
out of launching this one of its just satisfaction? You know, I talked about where I came from and how he ended up here. It's just satisfaction. Have any impact on students? And when I talk to my students to sit. Listen, I don't care if you call me six months amount three months from now or start three years from now. You know I treat you as anybody's who have ever worked with an industry. Call me. You got a question If I can help. So this is the satisfaction is clearly there. I guess if I look at it from, I would advise that I would give to students as well. Let me flip it around just a little bit because the satisfaction I get out of it's just tremendous, but it really just getting students to get involved, participate. There's so many classes in a curriculum, and it's so great point oriented. I have students taken by this program. Participating projects for zero credit hours got quite a few because it didn't part. It didn't fit into their curriculum, but they still realize the value of it. So just get involved, participate,

Cindy Cragg:   27:29
push the comfort sounds a little bit. This has got to stretch stretch to the Paranthan parameters for anybody that gets involved.

Jim Ducay:   27:37
No, it's exactly I was going to say be persistent. You know about the ambiguity. Yeah. You know, dealing with a blank sheet of paper is awful intimidating. Yeah, right. When you're sitting there and saying, OK, I've been taking classes, you have the syllabus. I know what we're studying. I know what it starts. And no one it

Cindy Cragg:   27:53
ends at the rubric for each assignment. I know when everything's d'oh Got an outline? What's expected? Yeah, How

Jim Ducay:   27:59
do I need to break this paper? Okay. It's telling me essentially how to write the paper, right? This one's in that. You've got a what's she got to try things. And don't be hesitant. If you run into a roadblock, find a way through it, be persistent. And don't let the ambiguity get that. Just start just putting some structure in place. Like I talked about storyboard person structure in place and determine what's right and what's wrong and keep adjusting. And you go for

Cindy Cragg:   28:22
Can you tell the difference in their confidence level from start to finish?

Jim Ducay:   28:26
Oh, absolutely.

Cindy Cragg:   28:27
Yeah. I have so usto.

Jim Ducay:   28:29
All you have to do is listen to presentations. You know, you think about presentations in the first quarter presentations later and in their ability

Cindy Cragg:   28:37
Only two

Jim Ducay:   28:37
percent, but also to respond to questions. Yeah, so at first the presents up the last question too, because it insane, they're not quite comfortable. You get to the second quarter all of a sudden. Now they're interacting with a client, right? It isn't just a question. It's a discussion now. So absolutely, the confidence goes. And

Cindy Cragg:   28:54
then the

Jim Ducay:   28:55
last thing that I would say is you have to learn from others. Innovation. A key part of innovation is diversity of thought and diversity of thought comes from people with different experiences different backgrounds, different disciplines, different whatever. Because if you put five of the same people in a room, you're gonna come up with nothing more than what one person can contribute. But you put five different people in a room, you're gonna change the world.

Cindy Cragg:   29:22
That's amazing. And I think that's a great place. Toe wrap this up, you know, I mean, that's quite a quote right there. You know I love it.

Jim Ducay:   29:34
The students are coming in things from a generation perspective that those of us who were older, it don't even see you right, and how they interact with technology and how they view technology is being a part of the lights going forward. So it's all about innovation and just letting them have that confidence to be able to go and, uh and execute.

Cindy Cragg:   29:53
Yeah, well, and I love that the approach is that these students can change the world and that bringing people together can change the world. Yeah, so? Well, I do have to say congratulations on the success that you've had with this program. So far, I've been thrilled to be a part of it with you and have the students in my program be a part of it with you. And I can't wait to see what comes of it in the coming quarters.

Jim Ducay:   30:18
Well, thanks. Thanks for this opportunity. And look forward to working with you going forward.

Cindy Cragg:   30:22
Sir, it was great speaking with you today. Have a topic you're passionate about as it relates to teaching and learning with an adult population, you can join our conversation by submitting suggestions or interview ideas. You're a website university college dot d'you got e d you forward slash elevated. I hope you'll subscribe and share this podcast. Colleagues some friends who are also passionate about effective teaching and learning strategies proposed traditional students. Thanks for listening