Biographical Sketch

Brian Janz is a George Johnson Fellow and in the past has been named a First Tennessee Professor of MIS, a George Johnson Teaching Fellow, the first Innovator in Residence at the FedEx Institute of Technology and the Associate Director of the FedEx Center for Supply Chain Management.  Dr. Janz is a recipient of the University of Memphis's Distinguished Teaching Award and has been named the Suzanne Downs Palmer Professor for Service and the Suzanne Downs Palmer Professor for Teaching.

Currently Dr. Janz is focusing his research efforts in the following areas:

- Understanding how human-centered design methodologies might enhance systems development and delivery;


- Understanding how emerging technologies are assimilated in the healthcare industry, and how healthcare professionals are affected by these emerging technologies;


- Understanding how collaboration, team-based learning, and organizational culture impact the creation and dissemination of knowledge for purposes of knowledge management and organizational intelligence, the development of information systems and the overall management of an organization;


- Understanding how information technologies and organizational practices can facilitate the creation and management of effective supply chains, and


- Exploring the effects that self-direction and cooperation have on teams of knowledge workers (i.e., "white collar" professionals), their work products, and ultimately their customers.


Brian has published articles on topics related to leadership, job satisfaction, self-directed teams, organizational learning, business process reengineering, and cycle time reduction. His articles can be found in publications such as MIS Quarterly, Decision Sciences, the Journal of Management Information Systems, the Communications of the AIS, the Journal of Information Technology Management, Cycle Time Research, Information and Management, and the Journal of Strategic Performance Measurement. In addition, Dr. Janz serves on the editorial review boards of several journals.

Dr. Janz has close to 40 years of experience in the information systems field working for The University of Minnesota, IBM, Honeywell, and General Motors, as well as consulting internationally for several Fortune 500 companies. Brian did his bachelor's degree work in electrical engineering at both The University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota. His MBA and Ph.D. were granted by The Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

Professional and Consultative Services

Dr. Janz has delivered presentations and keynote speeches to international user groups, multinational corporations, and professional societies on the following topics:

- The future of technology, and how to take advantage of emerging technologies


- How to think about innovation, and how to create an innovative organization

- Developing learning, team-based organizations

- How to motivate knowledge workers


- Best practices in optimizing organizational processes

- Supply chain management


- Self-directed knowledge work teams


- Effective organizational communication


In addition, Dr. Janz consults with Fortune 500 companies and conducts seminars on the following topics:

- Improving Emotional Intelligence through high-performance teams


- Human-centered design for innovation


- Enhancing personal creativity and innovativeness


- Creating and managing innovative organizations 


- IT concepts for non-IT professionals


- Managing change in organizations


- Creating effective learning organizations


- Critical success factors for teamwork (effective communication, leadership, motivation, and learning)


- Developing strategic supply chain alliances


- Business reengineering and process improvement


- Analyzing the structure and effectiveness of IS organizations and making improvement recommendations;


- Analyzing, mapping, and optimizing organizational and supply chain processes;


- Analyzing knowledge worker motivation, job satisfaction, teamwork and recommending improvements;


- Facilitating strategic planning sessions in all industries


- Analyzing professional development needs and customizing educational programs to address them