Air Force /
Flight Scheduling
Modernizing Legacy Systems
The Problem
Scheduling personnel for training flights is one of the Air Force’s most tedious and difficult roles, cross-referencing numerous spreadsheets and papers to see who’s available, who’s qualified, and who needs training the most.
TIME
3 Months
MY ROLE
Product design
Strategy
Research
The Plan
Building off another product team’s extensive work in scheduling, our team was spun up to tackle the “personnel” side of things. Put another way, Team A had designed the ability to schedule flights on a day – now we needed to help them choose who was going to go on those flights.
Team
Myself as sole Product Designer, one Product Manager,
one Subject Matter Expert, four Developers
one Subject Matter Expert, four Developers
Process
Research
We were fortunate to inherit a wealth of knowledge and resources beyond the core user group. Because of this, I conducted initial research with users, our team’s Subject Matter Expert, and our main stakeholder. My focus was on their current workflow, mapping out each step, what pains there were, and opportunities for improvement. My tool of choice was the service blueprint.
- Service blueprint
Design Sprint
With a firm grasp of their workflows across the team, I wanted to focus a significant amount of time to the ideation phase. We also had a ton of cross-team domain knowledge at our disposal, so I opted for the Design Sprint.
- Snippet from day 1 of our design sprint
Sprint Submissions
Testable Prototypes
Sprint Submissions
Testable Prototypes
As seen above, after a few days of “sprinting” we had a ton of awesome ideas. I ran user tests that we’d set-up in advance, and based on some feedback and technical considerations, ended up with the idea below:
Squadron Scheduler sees list of upcoming flights, and their current personnel levels.
Scheduler clicks into a flight to see the personnel info in more detail.
Full screen popover where scheduler can make in-depth scheduling decisions.
Result
This concept is still being built out, but initial user tests have been hugely successful. We are currently projected for implementation in >20 Air Force Bases across the country by Fall 2021.