LIFT
Connecting TSA Employees with Top Problem-Solvers
Program Overview
Lift Innovation Program: Transforming Transportation Security Together
At Lift, we recognize the invaluable insights and ingenuity that reside within our own employees. Our Lift Innovation Program is dedicated to unleashing the potential of TSA’s employees and forging relationships with nontraditional partners. By harnessing the collective problem-solving capabilities of our operational experts, industry leaders, and government partners, we aim to enhance security and efficiency in the nation’s transportation systems.
Key Features:
- Empowering Front Line Innovation: Lift Cells serve as hubs of innovation, empowering front line workers to identify and address challenges in real-time, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
- Collaboration Beyond Boundaries: The program connects TSA employees with top problem-solvers in industry, academia, and government, breaking down silos to create a collaborative ecosystem focused on shared success.
- Training and Tools for Impact: Lift Cell members receive specialized training and access to cutting-edge tools, equipping them with the skills needed to swiftly and effectively solve challenges at the local level.
Vision
Through the Lift Innovation Program, we aspire to be at the forefront of transformative advancements in transportation security. By uniting diverse perspectives and expertise from our employees and partners, we not only improve our operational effectiveness but also contribute to a safer and more efficient transportation landscape for our nation. Join us in reshaping the future of transportation security—where innovation knows no bounds, and collaboration knows no limits. Together, let’s make a difference in our mission to safeguard the nation’s transportation systems.
Goals
- Foster a culture of innovation and intrapreneurship at TSA
- Provide resources and pathways for TSA innovators to solve tactical level pain points
- Expand TSA’s innovative ecosystem with industry, academia, and government
Locations
Innovation Pipeline
Source: Collect innovation opportunities. TSA actively collects problem statements and ideas from every level of the workforce as well as industry, government, and non government partners.
Curate: Rigorously assess and prioritize opportunities. All problem statements and ideas collected are organized and categorized by mission focus areas. During curation, problems and ideas are validated for technical feasibility, organizational viability, and end-user desirability. This involves connecting potential stakeholders that may have an interest in the problem or its potentially resulting new policy, process, or technology.
Discover: Testing and validating critical hypotheses. In this phase, ideas and solutions are tested for application against the TSA mission model. Sometimes, this phase will include exploring how industry is solving the same or similar problems, and building a coalition or ecosystem of partners and experts to pursue the right solution for the Agency. Solutions may be identified through an agile design process and result in a minimum viable product, or MVP, and an associated test plan. Finally, this phase tailors an action plan to gain leadership support moving forward.
Incubate: Building Early Versions of the Solution. Projects moving into the incubation phase have gathered enough initial support to develop a prototype that is subsequently refined and tested to validate its proof of concept. Further, the processes and resources for scaling only the most successful prototypes are defined to scale their implementation.
Transition: Integrating and Scaling the Mature Solution. The CInO partners with relevant TSA operational components to prepare to receive the new process or technology in order to rapidly transition it to an operational environment to achieve mission impact. Traditionally the most difficult phase of an Innovation Pipeline, validated solutions must move steadily against the traditional, slow procurement and acquisitions processes through the valley of death. A break from requirements into agile development.
Employee Resources
Contact Us
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