Designing Safety at Scale
Supporting frontline screening operations at national scale through service design
Overview
Connecting People, Systems, and Operations
Every day, millions of people pass through airport security screening. Behind each interaction are frontline employees making rapid decisions under pressure, supported by systems that must work reliably at scale.
This case study represents one year of service design work supporting a national security organization’s strategy team. Using the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as an abstracted example, the work focused on understanding how frontline screening operations function in practice, identifying systemic constraints, and helping leadership align long-term modernization priorities with frontline realities.
Project Purpose
Aligning Strategy to Reality
The purpose of this project was not to design a single checkpoint experience or technology solution.
Instead, the work supported a strategy function in addressing a broader question:
How might we reduce operational risk while improving system performance?
To answer this, the organization needed a clearer, shared understanding of:
What challenges frontline employees face today
Where issues repeat across locations
How current modernization efforts align with real operational needs
The Challenge
Safety Relies on the Entire Service
As passenger volumes increased nationwide, frontline screening operations were required to manage higher throughput, evolving security requirements, and greater operational complexity — within constraints where rigorous testing, phased approvals, and funding cycles often limited how quickly technology could be updated once deployed.
At the same time:
Screening officers developed local adaptations to keep lines moving and maintain security standards
Headquarters teams planned modernization initiatives with limited visibility into on-the-ground variability
New technologies addressed specific checkpoints or tasks, but were not always scalable across airports
My Role
Service Design Leadership
I worked as a service designer embedded with the strategy effort, responsible for:
Leading qualitative research and synthesis
Facilitating cross-regional and cross-functional workshops
Creating journey maps and service blueprints
Translating insights into strategic artifacts leadership could use to guide modernization priorities
Stakeholder Interviews
Conducted stakeholder interviews across HQ, operations, and frontline teams
Field Studies
Conducted ethnographic observations and in-context interviews with employees across multiple regions
Workshop
Facilitated workshops to confirm recurring patterns and challenges across the organization
Approach
Research & Alignment Process
To build a shared understanding of the service, the work followed a phased, research-led approach:
1
Discovery
Reviewed past and current technology, processes, and implementation efforts to understand historical context and constraints.
2
HQ Interviews
Conversations with headquarters stakeholders to understand current initiatives, constraints, and long-term goals.
3
Ethnographic Field Studies
Observed operations and spoke directly with frontline employees across multiple regions to understand work in context.
4
Cross-Regional Workshops
Facilitated sessions with employees across the country to surface and validate shared challenges.
5
Service Artifacts
Created journey maps and abstracted service blueprints to identify patterns and constraints at scale.
6
Readout & Roadmapping
Synthesized findings for leadership and supported prioritization discussions for future-state planning.
Synthesized HQ Insights
An Observed Modernization Pattern
Through interviews with headquarters stakeholders, a consistent pattern emerged in how modernization efforts were understood, initiated, and delivered.
Within this lifecycle:
Frontline challenges often surfaced after operational strain was already present
Solutions were shaped for standardization, with limited ability to adapt to local variability
Ongoing maintenance prioritized stability, constraining adaptability as demand continued to grow
As passenger volume increased, modernization efforts tended to address visible bottlenecks without fully resolving underlying service constraints.
Modernization Lifecycle
DEFINE
DESIGN
DEPLOY
MAINTAIN
Central teams translate these signals into modernization initiatives and high-level business requirements.
Solutions are selected or developed, with limited validation against real-world variation across locations.
Technology and processes are rolled out at scale. Trainings are introduced to support adoption.
Systems are supported and updated over time, largely in response to surfaced issues.
↺ The cycle repeats as new challenges emerge.
DISCOVER
Leadership becomes aware of frontline challenges through aggregated reports, indirect feedback, or high-impact service moments.
Constraints
Operating within Real-World Limitations
This work was shaped by structural and operational constraints inherent to a nationwide public service:
Non-standard physical environments
Airport layouts vary significantly, affecting how technology, staffing, and passenger flow can be implemented in practice.
Uneven passenger volume
Airports experience different traffic levels, influencing when modernization efforts are prioritized and deployed.
Distributed ownership model
While TSA operates screening, airports are owned and managed by local or regional authorities, requiring coordination across multiple entities.
Multi-stakeholder decision-making
Modernization depends on alignment between federal leadership, airport authorities, vendors, and frontline operations.
Rather than designing for a single “ideal” environment, the approach focused on adaptable service models that could accommodate variability while maintaining safety and reliability at scale.
Key Insight
Systemic, Not Siloed
Consistent themes across frontline and leadership perspectives revealed systemic challenges with agency-wide implications. These insights shaped a future-state service blueprint intended to inform long-term, cross-airport modernization efforts.
Designing the Future of Passenger Screening
A service blueprint for safe, scalable operations
This future-state service blueprint illustrates how passenger screening operations could be supported through a more integrated, human-centered service model. It translates research insights into system-level opportunities across workforce readiness, partnerships, public engagement, and innovation. Rather than prescribing specific technologies, the blueprint highlights where alignment across people, processes, and tools can improve safety, reliability, and adaptability at scale.
Support the Workforce
Equip frontline teams with the capacity, skills, and stability to operate safely at scale.
Workforce Planning
Ensure staffing levels align with demand and local operational realities.
role-based TRAINING
Provide consistent, role-specific training that evolves with tools and processes.
Workforce Retention
Support long-term workforce stability through sustainable roles and support systems.
OPTIMIZE KEY PARTNERSHIPS
Enable coordinated operations across partners to reduce friction and improve flow.
Data Alignment
Share timely, relevant data across teams and partner organizations.
Shared Technology
Coordinate screening tools and equipment across environments and vendors.
Processing Standards
Align documentation and procedures while allowing for local variation.
ENGAGe THE PUBLIC
Help passengers move through screening with clarity, confidence, and accessibility.
proactive COMMUNICATION
Provide timely, plain-language guidance before and during screening.
BIOMETRIC verification
Streamline identity checks while maintaining security and privacy.
Spatial Wayfinding
Design intuitive layouts that guide passengers through complex spaces.
Impact
Grounding Modernization Priorities
The work helped leadership:
See screening as a connected service system
Identify problem hotspots affecting safety and reliability
Ground modernization priorities in frontline reality
Most importantly, it reframed modernization conversations from:
“Which technology should we deploy?”
to
“Which parts of the service need to evolve to better support safe operations?”
Reflection
Designing for Adaptability
This project reinforced that service design in government is less about creating perfect solutions and more about navigating complexity responsibly.
Progress often depends on designing within constraints — physical, political, and operational — while still advocating for the people doing the work. By focusing on patterns instead of edge cases, and adaptability instead of uniformity, we were able to inform modernization efforts that were realistic, scalable, and grounded in frontline reality.
Designing Safety at Scale
Supporting frontline screening operations at national scale through service design
Overview
Connecting People, Systems, and Operations
Every day, millions of people pass through airport security screening. Behind each interaction are frontline employees making rapid decisions under pressure, supported by systems that must work reliably at scale.
This case study represents one year of service design work supporting a national security organization’s strategy team. Using the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as an abstracted example, the work focused on understanding how frontline screening operations function in practice, identifying systemic constraints, and helping leadership align long-term modernization priorities with frontline realities.
Project Purpose
Aligning Strategy to Reality
The purpose of this project was not to design a single checkpoint experience or technology solution.
Instead, the work supported a strategy function in addressing a broader question:
How might we reduce operational risk while improving system performance?
To answer this, the organization needed a clearer, shared understanding of:
What challenges frontline employees face today
Where issues repeat across locations
How current modernization efforts align with real operational needs
The Challenge
Safety Relies on the Entire Service
As passenger volumes increased nationwide, frontline screening operations were required to manage higher throughput, evolving security requirements, and greater operational complexity — within constraints where rigorous testing, phased approvals, and funding cycles often limited how quickly technology could be updated once deployed.
At the same time:
Screening officers developed local adaptations to keep lines moving and maintain security standards
Headquarters teams planned modernization initiatives with limited visibility into on-the-ground variability
New technologies addressed specific checkpoints or tasks, but were not always scalable across airports
My Role
Service Design Leadership
I worked as a service designer embedded with the strategy effort, responsible for:
Leading qualitative research and synthesis
Facilitating cross-regional and cross-functional workshops
Creating journey maps and service blueprints
Translating insights into strategic artifacts leadership could use to guide modernization priorities
Stakeholder Interviews
Conducted stakeholder interviews across HQ, operations, and frontline teams
Field Studies
Conducted ethnographic observations and in-context interviews with employees across multiple regions
Workshop
Facilitated workshops to confirm recurring patterns and challenges across the organization
Approach
Research & Alignment Process
To build a shared understanding of the service, the work followed a phased, research-led approach:
1
Discovery
Reviewed past and current technology, processes, and implementation efforts to understand historical context and constraints.
2
HQ Interviews
Conversations with headquarters stakeholders to understand current initiatives, constraints, and long-term goals.
3
Ethnographic Field Studies
Observed operations and spoke directly with frontline employees across multiple regions to understand work in context.
4
Cross-Regional Workshops
Facilitated sessions with employees across the country to surface and validate shared challenges.
5
Service Artifacts
Created journey maps and abstracted service blueprints to identify patterns and constraints at scale.
6
Readout & Roadmapping
Synthesized findings for leadership and supported prioritization discussions for future-state planning.
Synthesized HQ Insights
An Observed Modernization Pattern
Through interviews with headquarters stakeholders, a consistent pattern emerged in how modernization efforts were understood, initiated, and delivered.
Within this lifecycle:
Frontline challenges often surfaced after operational strain was already present
Solutions were shaped for standardization, with limited ability to adapt to local variability
Ongoing maintenance prioritized stability, constraining adaptability as demand continued to grow
As passenger volume increased, modernization efforts tended to address visible bottlenecks without fully resolving underlying service constraints.
Modernization Lifecycle
DEFINE
DESIGN
DEPLOY
MAINTAIN
Central teams translate these signals into modernization initiatives and high-level business requirements.
Solutions are selected or developed, with limited validation against real-world variation across locations.
Technology and processes are rolled out at scale. Trainings are introduced to support adoption.
Systems are supported and updated over time, largely in response to surfaced issues.
↺ The cycle repeats as new challenges emerge.
DISCOVER
Leadership becomes aware of frontline challenges through aggregated reports, indirect feedback, or high-impact service moments.
Constraints
Operating within Real-World Limitations
This work was shaped by structural and operational constraints inherent to a nationwide public service:
Non-standard physical environments
Airport layouts vary significantly, affecting how technology, staffing, and passenger flow can be implemented in practice.
Uneven passenger volume
Airports experience different traffic levels, influencing when modernization efforts are prioritized and deployed.
Distributed ownership model
While TSA operates screening, airports are owned and managed by local or regional authorities, requiring coordination across multiple entities.
Multi-stakeholder decision-making
Modernization depends on alignment between federal leadership, airport authorities, vendors, and frontline operations.
Rather than designing for a single “ideal” environment, the approach focused on adaptable service models that could accommodate variability while maintaining safety and reliability at scale.
Key Insight
Systemic, Not Siloed
Across airports, frontline employees independently described challenges that closely aligned with leadership concerns — validating that these issues were systemic rather than location-specific.
Designing the Future of Passenger Screening
A service blueprint for safe, scalable operations
This future-state service blueprint illustrates how passenger screening operations could be supported through a more integrated, human-centered service model. It translates research insights into system-level opportunities across workforce readiness, partnerships, public engagement, and innovation. Rather than prescribing specific technologies, the blueprint highlights where alignment across people, processes, and tools can improve safety, reliability, and adaptability at scale.
Support the Workforce
Equip frontline teams with the capacity, skills, and stability to operate safely at scale.
Workforce Planning
Ensure staffing levels align with demand and local operational realities.
role-based TRAINING
Provide consistent, role-specific training that evolves with tools and processes.
Workforce Retention
Support long-term workforce stability through sustainable roles and support systems.
OPTIMIZE KEY PARTNERSHIPS
Enable coordinated operations across partners to reduce friction and improve flow.
Data Alignment
Share timely, relevant data across teams and partner organizations.
Shared Technology
Coordinate screening tools and equipment across environments and vendors.
Processing Standards
Align documentation and procedures while allowing for local variation.
ENGAGe THE PUBLIC
Help passengers move through screening with clarity, confidence, and accessibility.
proactive COMMUNICATION
Provide timely, plain-language guidance before and during screening.
BIOMETRIC verification
Streamline identity checks while maintaining security and privacy.
Spatial Wayfinding
Design intuitive layouts that guide passengers through complex spaces.
Impact
Grounding Modernization Priorities
The work helped leadership:
See screening as a connected service system
Identify problem hotspots affecting safety and reliability
Ground modernization priorities in frontline reality
Most importantly, it reframed modernization conversations from:
“Which technology should we deploy?”
to
“Which parts of the service need to evolve to better support safe operations?”
Reflection
Designing for Adaptability
This project reinforced that service design in government is less about creating perfect solutions and more about navigating complexity responsibly.
Progress often depends on designing within constraints — physical, political, and operational — while still advocating for the people doing the work. By focusing on patterns instead of edge cases, and adaptability instead of uniformity, we were able to inform modernization efforts that were realistic, scalable, and grounded in frontline reality.