Jason Gilliam

Case Study Reflection X-Labs and Nick Swayne

For our group Case Study, we chose to examine Nick Swayne and his
leadership over the JMU Xlabs program. JMU Xlabs works with a robust
discipline, and focuses on a wide range of subjects including Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The area of Xlabs that we
focused on was the JMU Drone Project. For this project within Xlabs, teams
are formed, and these teams work on designing, developing, building,
testing, and refining ideas for drone applications. The challenge for this is
utilizing the drones in solutions for real world problems that we are facing.
Xlabs is a collaborative effort between students, faculty, and community
members. It is not restricted to a certain major or organization, so there are
people of all different academic disciplines that participate in the program.
Their slogan is Developing uncommon ideas through uncommon
partnerships. I believe this really shows that they bring together people
from these different disciplines to work on projects together and really get
different perspectives to come up with the best solutions to these problems
as possible.
Once the participating members are split into separate teams in Xlabs,
they are given a project assignment to work on. There are a range of
different projects that are assigned to the teams, focusing on different types
of real world problems that could potentially be solved with the use of
drones. Some groups work on ecology issues like air pollution and the

sustainability of riverbeds. There is another group that focuses on having

the drones work as first responders in emergency situations and aerial
imaging. There are other groups that focus specifically on landmine
detection and landmine disarmament. All of these are real world problems
that exist today, and the use of drones to aid these problems goes against
what the status quo has been in solving these problems in the past.
Nick Swayne is the Faculty Coordinator for JMU Xlabs and is really the
one who gets the ball rolling when it comes to coordinating the JMU Drone
Project and making it what it is today. He is the the 4VA Director of JMU. 4VA is a statewide initiative dedicated to fostering collaboration among
Virginia Universities with the goal of improving all Virginians access to
higher education, as well as collaborating to find solutions to commonly held
issues in higher education. The member schools of 4-VA are George Mason
University, James Madison University, Old Dominion University, University of
Virginia, and Virginia Tech. Nick Swayne has really helped advance the
program and believes that it can grow and become even bigger in the future.
He helps advance the program by applying for grants through the school to
do this research and get the necessary equipment and technology needed to
allow this type of technological innovation. His hope is that by getting these
grants here at JMU, and showing that students can produce real solutions to
these problems, the operation can grow to other Universities and become a
bigger collaboration with more grants, which will produce more innovation

and solutions for problems and help the greatest amount of people going
forward.
Our group member Halat, actually participated in the Xlabs project,
and worked in one of the groups working with drones, or UAVs, as they are
called within Xlabs. His group in particular was working on mapping air
quality using the UAVs. Their goal is to be able to create a higher resolution
heat map to be able to determine where various pollutants are located in the
air. Their current challenge is trying to modify the drone so that it will be
able to fly for longer amounts of time and be able to capture more samples
of the air. The group actually came up with a prototype and has sent it off to
Nova labs to be approved. This is just one small example of all the innovative
solutions that the groups have come up with so far.
When it comes to the collaborative dynamic of Xlabs, Nick Swayne is
the one who really facilitates the group dynamic. He brings group members
together from many different backgrounds and disciplines together to
achieve multiple goals. This is not always a smooth and easy process, as
people with different backgrounds and disciplines do not always think in the
same ways and sometimes there is deliberation and disagreement. This is
where the innovation happens, as people with different skill sets collaborate
their thoughts to create new ideas that may not have been thought of
before. This project is not only advancing technology and innovation, but
also teaching these students and faculty that are involved how to work
together with a diverse group of people in a collaborative manner, and how

to become leaders going forward. They use many of the techniques that
David Jaris talks about in his Creative Problem Solving model. Just as his
model says, these groups stretch their thinking to generate an idea that is
paradigm breaking. They creatively take a new view of an old problem and it
leads to these breakthrough ideas that they are coming up with.
The Xlabs program would not be as successful as it has been without
the great leadership that it has. Nick Swayne really leads the groups in a
way that fosters the innovation and progress that has been achieved. Nick
Swayne leads through a transformational leadership style. He is always able
to identify where change is needed in the facilitation of the groups in Xlabs.
He experiments with the groups and sees who works together well and is
flexible with allowing people to really work on the projects that they feel the
most passionate about, which typically provides the best results. He also
really creates a vision for the Xlabs as a whole. He sees these projects as
creative change that can really have a positive effect on the world, and as a
gateway to more of this type of collaborative research at universities across
the nation.
McClesky said that there are four factors or components of
Transformational Leadership that are usually exhibited. These factors are
idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and
individualized consideration. Swayne definitely exhibits the idealized
influence over the participants in the Xlabs. Many of the participants think
very highly of him and have a great deal of respect for the work that he

does. He provides them with inspirational motivation, by inspiring them to

work on these projects that are working towards coming up with solutions
that could really effect this world in a positive way. The intellectual
stimulation part of his leadership style is obvious. Bringing together all these
different types of people to work together toward goals is fostering a place
where new ideas are always going to be flowing. They can come up with
solutions for these problems, while advancing their scientific, technological,
engineering, and math skills. Another underrated part of what he is doing for
these group members intellectually, is giving them a lot of useful experience
in working in a creative group setting with a diverse group of people. This is
a skill a lot of people do not have and is useful for anyone going out and
working in the real world. Swayne also exhibits a great deal of individualized
consideration. He meets and gets to know each student personally, so that
he can have a better idea of what their skills and goals are. This is another
reason he is so good at providing facilitation to the group dynamic, as he
knows the students personally and can see where they fit into the
collaboration. He is able to employ project management and change
management over the group to make sure that they are always on the right
track. He also sometimes does trust-based activities within the groups so
that they really form bonds and trust each other, which is key in
collaborative efforts.
Nick Swayne and Xlabs also take a Utilitarian approach to their
leadership. Utilitarianism is a leadership strategy in which you try to create

the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. When you
look at the problems and challenges that are presented in Xlabs, they are
trying to find solutions to problems that have long term effects on the
welfare of people and the environment in which we live. Utilitarianism
attempts to maximize the social benefits while minimizing social costs. This
is why something like drone location and disarmament could be so
important. Being able to use drones for the location and disarmament could
save lives and greatly benefit people in geographic areas where this is a real
concern, while not putting the welfare of humans in danger. Many times, the
challenges that are given in Xlabs can put the groups in ethical dilemmas.
This is done on purpose, because it helps make them work on their problem
solving skills to try and creatively come up with solutions that will solve
these challenges in the most ethical ways possible.
Overall, the leadership of Nick Swayne over the course of these
projects helps guide them to being so successful. I think the process that
they go through is similar to Jarviss Creative Problem Solving Process. They
first assess the situation, which in their cases would be these real world
problems that are having a negative effect on the world. Next, they explore
a vision for what they want to change and start discovering what challenges
and obstacles will make solving these problems difficult. All of the
challenges in Xlabs have obstacles within them that make them difficult,
such as the drones battery life when creating maps and the dangerous
nature of the minefields. Next, they collaboratively explore ideas and begin

to formulate solutions to these problems by working together in their diverse

groups. This is what Xlabs does best. They bring these different people
together and come up with solutions that are going to do the most to benefit
the greatest amount of people, as their utilitarian approach would dictate.
After they have come up with these ideas, they formulate a plan for
implementation of their solutions to these projects and get great results.
The JMU Drone Project was set to last the entire fall semester, so when
we originally did our research and gave our presentation, they had not
finished their projects and presented their showcases. After looking through
their website and the different groups showcase pages, it looks as though all
of the groups were a major success in achieving their goals of providing
innovative solutions to the problems that their groups were given. One of
the main things I noticed with all the groups, was that they said that with
more resources, drones, and funding, they could really produce products that
could be very innovative and potentially groundbreaking in their respective
industries. This is where I believe the transformational leadership of Nick
Swayne will come into play, and he will find ways to receive more grants and
funding to expand the collaborative effort to more schools and students to
have a greater effect. He has a vision for the program and will continue to
adjust and advance it. Overall, Xlabs provided the opportunity for students
and faculty from all different disciplines to work together and provide
solutions to real world problems. That is a win-win for everyone involved and
can only continue to be positive and grow with every new semester and

project. I believe that under Swaynes unique leadership style, Xlabs will
continue to grow, and they will continue to take on new challenges and try to
have the biggest positive effect possible.