The University of Houston Katy Campus offers several distinct technology and engineering degree programs, including Computer Engineering & Analytics, Construction Engineering and Systems Engineering. One of the more unique courses offered at UH Katy is Technology Leadership and Innovation Management (TLIM) Professor of Practice David Crawley’s “Innovation Principles.”
The course’s foundation is based on the requirements to obtain professional certification in Innovation Engineering, and students who earn an A in the course also earn an Innovation Engineering Blue Belt — an endeavor sometimes worth tens of thousands of dollars to pursue elsewhere — sponsored by the Cullen College of Engineering.
“They get the industry certification enhanced with the rigor and insights of the Cullen College of Engineering by learning the cognitive disciplines of thinking as a portfolio of skills that, when practiced, become a tradecraft of capabilities to discern, discover, design and deliver innovation,” said Crawley.
“Many people see innovation as something tied to inventing a thing to create a startup, but that’s really entrepreneurism,” he continued. “We've evolved the discussion about innovation to include a sustainable expertise for developing and leading innovation as a professional proficiency that can be taught. We define this as engineering ingenuity — just like the Engines of our Ingenuity podcast — where every innovation originates from insight. That insight creates discovery followed by decisions inspired by stimulating the mechanics of the brain. Decisions are the precursors to action, and action is the activity that creates innovation. While a lot of people are focusing on inventions and startups, we’re focusing on engineering innovation before the commercialized outcome through structured thinking supported by tools, processes and training.”
Some of the components of this cognitive discipline and training include critical thinking, lateral thinking, systems thinking, logic modeling, reasoning and communications. Where linear thinking carves a straight path from problem to conceptualized solution, engineering innovation requires no such starting-point problem. Instead, it encourages lateral thinking: a less direct, more fluid approach that doesn’t require the same stepwise framework.
The class boasts no final exam, no midterm and no “thousand-word paper;” instead, a series of exercises that may be re-worked and re-submitted as many times as required before the final due date are how students unite and apply the concepts they learn each week. Crawley considers these written exercises to be a “prototype of thought” that, once written, becomes a physical, measurable product of the author’s judgement and skill.
Crawley himself holds a black belt in Innovation Engineering, and considers the applications and tools students gain in the course to be “agnostic.”
“Our minds are like cogs in an engine, so you can apply the disciplines and tools provided in the class to all parts of your life. These tools become a career jumpstart toolkit for students,” he said.
It’s so agnostic, in fact, that Crawley and his colleagues have wrapped the course content up into a book about the methodology — Engineering Ingenuity: A Pathway Overview and Playbook for Innovation Principles — which is now published under an international open copyright by UH Libraries.
“We want other people to use it,” said Crawley. “We’ve expanded on everything learned and taught to evolve this course over the past 7 years. I’m a man of purpose and compassion who believes in the integrity of great work, and I am a catalyst for something greater than today. I bring that forward to our students because they are the ones who are making sense of something that will ultimately be tomorrow — they will fulfill the vision of making sense of the future.
“These skill sets help future-proof our students and impede the cognitive offloading encouraged by the overuse of AI,” he added. “At the end of the semester students often say the course has literally changed the way they think. What I see in their eyes is the realization that their hope of a real future with substance is possible, and that makes a difference.”