TURN SYSTEMS AUDIT
Process optimization for a large commercial airline through the lens of relationships and communications.
Context
Consulting project for the DXC / Luxoft / Smashing Ideas Strategy Team
Client: A large US-based commercial airline
Teammates: Ilona Chebotareva, Ty Willliams, Diamond Kenney, and Liza Sankar-Gorton
One of the world’s largest airlines was driving an effort to improve its aircraft turn process at its hub airports. We were asked by the company’s IT leadership to conduct ethnographic research with frontline employees and a systems analysis to uncover communication breakdowns, evaluate the company's technology in meeting employee needs, and identify opportunities to improve information sharing during the turn process.
Approach
Over a multi-phase effort, we assessed the company's current processes, conducted qualitative research interviewing and shadowing frontline team-members as they conducted their roles on the turn process, and mapped the information ecosystem to identify key communication breakdowns and their impacts.
We leveraged ethnographic research methods and systems thinking to identify pain points within the turn process and ran a workshop that connected frontline employees with their headquarters colleagues.
Our clients gained a systems perspective, deeper empathy for frontline airport employees, and human-centered insights into the uses and impacts of core technologies managed by the IT department, as well as clear opportunities for employee-driven process optimization.
Role Archetypes
We conducted extensive interviews with frontline staff in each of the five primary turn process roles and spent an immersive week on the ground at the airline's largest hub, shadowing each role as staff conducted many aircraft turns per day.
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From this research, we developed role archetypes that not only showed the communication needs and processes for each role, but also their motivations and desires for being successful team members. These were powerful deliverables for building empathy between the headquarters IT team striving for process optimization and the humans on the ground conducting the process.
Collaborative Workshops
We conducted and synthesized an online workshop to enable Turn Coordinators — the role that tracks the turn-around process and responds to delays — to dive deeper into their experiences and processes. This both supplemented our on-the-ground immersive research and provided another opportunity for building empathy and closer connection between Turn Coordinators and headquarters teams.
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We conducted additional collaborative sessions with our headquarters clients throughout the project, using the platform Miro to craft generative and fun digital workshop experiences.
Systems Analysis
I conducted the systems thinking synthesis of our research, which ultimately became the centerpiece of our final deliverable to the client. This analysis involved mapping the information flows between turn staff for key pieces of information, then identifying impacts, pain points, and opportunities.
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I conducted this systems analysis using Miro to create simple system maps that we later refined collaboratively. Below is a sample of the analysis for one of the key pieces of information: Door Close Metrics.
Final Presentation
Below is a sample of slides from our final presentation to the client. We included strategic recommendations, systems maps, role archetypes, a technology audit, and other outputs of our extensive research and synthesis.
I was responsible for developing our presentation design and slide templates, as well as the overall narrative structure of the presentation to enable clear information delivery to the clients.
