Blog
Rose Bud Thorn
The Rose, Bud, Thorn tool is consistently the most downloaded tool in the kit. I have to admit that particular statistic from our website's analytics always puzzled me a bit. I mean, RBT is a fine little method but it never struck me as particularly special. In fact,...
ITK & F-35
This week's guest post is by Rick Dunham, from MITRE's Air/Ground Surveillance Program, and it highlights a recent application of the Innovation Toolkit to the F-35 program. On Nov. 5-6, MITRE’s F-35 Lightning II Enterprise Focus team met in Dayton, Ohio, to build...
INTERVIEW: Daniel Hulter
This week, ITK is chatting with Daniel Hulter who we came across on LinkedIn. On separate occasions Dan Ward and I saw Daniel’s posts and were inspired to reach out and connect. One of Daniel’s recent posts asked the community about upskilling and training personnel...
The Timekeeper
I started wearing a wristwatch at a young age – one of those with Minnie Mouse on it (see more about my Disney obsession here). That meant I ended up being the one people would look to when a classroom didn’t have a clock on the wall or we went outside for gym class:...
INTERVIEW: Aileen Laughlin
Aileen Laughlin, Lead Systems Engineer, brings a long passion for technology, innovation, and user-centered design to Team Toolkit. Her enthusiasm and wild ideas bring an electric energy to the team, so I was looking forward to chatting with her about how she got...
INTERVIEW: Rachel Gregorio
What do caricatures, public speaking, and user experience design all have in common? I was fortunate to answer this question when I interviewed Rachel Gregorio. She’s tailored her career around her talent as an artist and passion for user centered design. In addition...
Let’s All Eat Cake
Team Toolkit recently did an experiment. We observed, we learned, and were humbled. We want to do it again, and in this story we’d like to share it with you. As we mentioned in an earlier blog post, our team celebrates unsuccessful endeavors with Failure Cakes. A week...
INTERVIEW: Niall White
Earlier this month I sat down with Niall White for an interview, the latest in our ongoing Meet Team Toolkit blog series. Well, I’m using the word “with” loosely, because I was in Massachusetts and he lives in Utah. We talked about music, art, cake, stinky cheese, and...
The User Centered Design Challenge
Why is being user-centered such a challenge in the DoD? I first asked myself this question while working Human Systems Integration (HSI) as a Systems Engineer for a large defense contractor. As I explored this difficult topic, I realized I might have more luck driving...
Team Toolkit’s Road Show!
Hot. Muggy. Humid. Like a swamp (but not really). Yep, I’m talking about DC summers. The time when tourists and summer interns descend en masse upon the District, and the locals grumble about these visitors mistakenly standing on the left side of the metro escalators....