Countering Emerging Threats with Innovative, Human-Centered Thinking

Similarly, Arc Aspicio implemented design thinking as part of our strategy to develop innovative client-based solutions across a variety of mission areas. For example, our company hosts innovation sessions to teach our employees best practices to solve our clients’ challenging problems through design thinking.

The solutions we offer are not determined in a linear process. In other words, they are not “We have a problem, let’s brainstorm solutions.” Managing threats and preventing incidents in the 21st century require new levels of collaboration, so our company uses iterative, human-centered innovation techniques that lead to greater knowledge sharing. As a result, our consultants are able to develop a deeper understanding of the issues and prototype solutions, which leads to optimal mission results for our clients.

Design thinking reflects our dedication to the future of Government through new approaches, rapid solutions, innovation, and ingenuity. This forward-thinking approach provides human-centered solutions to emerging threats and mission challenges in variety of homeland security areas, including transportation security, immigration, border management, law enforcement emergency management, and intelligence.

As our nation continues to face a rising number of threats at home, the Government must devise innovative solutions to maintain effective homeland security. The increasing threat to aviation security based on the recent Egyptian Air incidents, the growing threat from international terrorism, and the rising threat from unrest in other countries is challenging the Government to find new ways to overcome specific challenges (e.g., airport security, immigration entry to the country, etc.).

The intent of design thinking is to foster innovative ideas and human-centered solutions from the perspective of the stakeholder. Design thinking consists of five elements: empathy, defining, ideation, refining, and implementation. Implementing these elements gives the Government a unique approach to efficiently design solutions.

For example, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) implemented a design thinking solution to create a more transparent and efficient security screening process. In particular, TSA refined its security process to more effectively detect explosives and individuals with hostile intent. To do so, TSA developed a prototype during the ideation phase that redesigned the physical space of the security screening process. This improved the passenger flow at airports and interactions between TSA staff and passengers. The prototype’s success catalyzed the retraining of 50,000 TSA employees to implement the enhanced security screening process at 450 domestic airports.