When Operations BX ≠ UX with CX:
Aligning business goals with strategic mobile product design for operational efficiency
Enterprise Product/ Mobile Leadership
From agile sprint planning, research and product design management
United Airlines hired me to establish, define and oversee the delivery of their first-ever agile global operations UX team. Previously, they had decentralized contract designers and engineers to design operational software in waterfall with significant cost overruns, release delays and poor agent (user) adoption. I stood up a team with zero bench available and implemented the first-ever agile design team.
Within six months we shifted from being task takers (overbuilding products), to deploying a team of researchers/strategists in the field (airports/flight) to identify key problems in Pivotal Moments™ with rapid workshops or systems assessments. My team released the first-ever mobile native app (iOS) for agents in the airline industry, converting legacy tools and “green screen” terminals into a fluid experience.
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Shifting from a waterfall design approach and priority 1 proliferation, I implemented United’s first-ever agile design approach working in two-week sprints and backlogs that used WSFJ methods of scoring urgency and risk.
Result: Allowed on and offshore teams to migrate off of waterfall and into more efficient, agile deployments.
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My global ops product design team continuously connected business with engineering teams on net new improvements or updates. We quickly realized that many of these requests came from airport teams with little context which created confusion in development.
Within weeks of proposing a product strategy/research team, I hired members to hop on daily flights for a day and meet with airport or inflight agents. I implemented rapid design thinking workshops with them to assess and define these “asks.” This either added clarity to a development need, or provided CX-EX (agent) recommendations on training, process, or systems improvements. Reducing development cost overruns between 12% to 43%.
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There was quarterly discussion on expanding our Design Ops team into United’s first “Innovation Lab” but space was consistently a challenge to allocate between staff growth and building policies. (Even unused massive “closets” were off limits) We shifted to identifying airport spaces instead.
The focus was always a human centric goal rather than a tech focus achievement. My team worked on RFID wristband prototypes for unaccompanied minors. We evaluated CPU-less workstations using Samsung’s tech that ran off a mobile device. We also evaluated early biometric gate (pass-less) boarding.
Results: eliminated 21% of development cost overruns with newly implemented product evaluations and prioritizations that deferred EX training, process improvements, or systems latency.
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Value Proposition with CX Success
Analytical CX and Business Measurement Alignment
Design Thinking Workshops on product roadmaps
Qualitative and Quantitative Research Analysis from Ethnographic to UX Testing
Persona Strategy Development
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Journey Mapping with Change Management
Weekly Use Cases and User Story Development
Product Design Playbooks
User Experience Flows and Lightweight (Atom) Design System
Product Journey Touchpoints and Information Architectures
Enterprise Design Ops and Standards
User Flows and Activation Strategies
Rapid Prototyping and High-fidelity Wireframes with Requirements
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Platform Maturity Readiness connected to UX Requirements
Product Feasibility Prioritization
Agile Sprint Grooming and Design Deployment Management
Product Lifecycles and Application sunsetting
IBM and PaaS tech
KPI Success
• $43.25 Bn in 2019, 4.74% YoY
• $6.7 Bn increase (2016 to 2019)
• +1,700,000 Flights/year +4,600 Flights/day
• 148 MM passengers (2017); 100 MM loyalty members
• 354 airports served, 74 countries
• 91,526 Employees: 23,065 Fight Attendants, 13,831 Pilots, 16,129 Airport Agents
• $43.25 Bn in 2019, 4.74% YoY • $6.7 Bn increase (2016 to 2019) • +1,700,000 Flights/year +4,600 Flights/day • 148 MM passengers (2017); 100 MM loyalty members • 354 airports served, 74 countries • 91,526 Employees: 23,065 Fight Attendants, 13,831 Pilots, 16,129 Airport Agents
Sequential (2wk) delivery sprints with zero downtime. Period.
"I think our customers need better service and better personalization today, that's what we are focusing on."
Oscar Munoz, November 9, 2017
13 Applications I managed and delivered at United (13)
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![A boarding pass overview for flight UA 944 on March 20, with details about seat assignments, passenger names, and baggage information. The interface shows a green message indicating a successful upgrade, and various tabs for managing seats, bags, and flight actions.]()
Aero (Desktop)*
Aero was the core application with both Lobby and Gates management experience my team oversaw daily, replacing a legacy terminal. It evolved significantly in both feature set and mobile modular designs support.
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![Mobile airline app screen displaying flight details from Orlando (ORD) to Los Angeles (LAX), departing February 6th at 4:00 pm, arriving early at 6:26 pm, gate C19, terminal 1, Concourse C, with baggage claim 75B, two checked bags, notifications enabled, and a button for releasing held seats.]()
MAP: Mobile Agent Platform*
Mobile Agent was the first native mobile application launched in operations to compliment Aero. It moved from utility features to a fully developed ops tool for managing lobby and (gates) boarding management.
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![Mobile airline app screen showing flight details from LHR to ORD, member Ben Smith, no incident reports, and a technology/FLIFO severity level set to light.]()
In-the-Moment Care App (ItMC)*
Although originally tested and deployed in Aero, feature planning showed it needed it’s own app, introducing a better flow with selector scrolling that won awards and improved CX public relations for United.
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![A mobile app screen showing a payment summary with a total due of $110.97. The screen displays two payment options: Card and Miles. Below, there is a list of four items, including Tito's Handmade Vodka for $7.99 and an Economy Plus Seat for $89.99. There are also options to unbundle or delete a bundle, and a toggle switch for applying an overall discount.]()
Inflight Food & Compensation App
Developed on IBM PaaS, we rapidly developed wireframes for inflight service with similar UX patterns for the IMC App. Beverage/food stock compensation with loyalty status miles and NFC card payment support were solutioned.
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![Flight information display showing inbound flights to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport (DFW), gates B1, B2, and B3, with scheduled departure and arrival times.]()
Insights Ops (Airport & Baggage) App*
Delivered a 2.0 airport-wide app for agents from global research in flight management into design delivery of at-a-glance airport-wide management at every airport a multiple levels of flight, passenger, and baggage management.
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![Screenshot of airline maintenance tracking software showing flight details, log entries, and aircraft status.]()
TOMC Aircraft Maintenance (Desktop)
The Global Network Operations Center asked to consolidate several tools into a single dashboard for rapid ops decisions on aircraft maintenance planning. Complex policies with scheduling were simplified for quicker decision-making.
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![Mobile app screen showing a travel booking interface for a passenger named Cecilia Sullivan. It displays a section for managing bags, including an option to add a bag, with details for Bag 1 and total fees of $40.00]()
Bag Scanning App
A Zebra hand scanning tool running on Workcloud for baggage management including freight. Researched designs for new devices in extreme conditions. Poor lighting indicators tested with winter gloves, and goggles to reduce operational failures.
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![Screenshot of a website page titled 'MileagePlus: Award and Premier Accelerator,' showing sections on policy updates, guidelines, reservation procedures, fare information, ticket information, active status, and booking class matrix, with a blue and white color theme.]()
CX Policy CMS Platform
We consolidated and improved a policy CMS experience for both call center and airport staff with new customer event handling recommendations. Workshop design thinking JTBD and urgency scenarios were applied.
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![Screen showing United Airlines curbside bag check-in process with details of checked bags, fees, and baggage attributes.]()
Curbside App
The outside curbside app is a utility used at airports for “curb” check-in and baggage payments. Requiring a mouse and keyboard, the new app could migrate touchpads. Readability and environmental extremities evaluated.
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![Business management dashboard with bar graphs and line charts displaying weekly data, total requests, and forecast overview.]()
Wheelchair Management Platform
With hundreds of “Jet Bridge Jesus” moments of people deboarding without la wheelchair, we evaluated a new planning tool to improve 3rd party staffing between flight capacity and scheduling to reduce operational delays and improve CX.
Travel Case Studies:
2017 Team Highlights Reel
I produced/edited a compilation of the team’s accomplishments for a leadership summit to both elevate morale, advance funding for 2018, and build leadership prioritizations for our roadmap planning.
After releasing a real-time In-the-Moment-Care mobile compensation app in only four months, Forrester measured a 3-point CX lift within the next year.
$3.49 x 48M =
Incremental revenue/customer x average customers/airline
$168M
Total revenue from CX lift
87.7 MM
Is what the aviation industry provides in total jobs worldwide
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