A multi-phase engagement combining Design Thinking capability building for 48 senior leaders with a high-intensity Innovation Sprint that produced a production-ready turnaround coordination app in just 5 days.
$2M in savings from an app built in 5 days
About
RwandAir is Rwanda's national flag carrier, founded in 2002 and headquartered in Kigali. Operating a fleet of 16 aircraft across 25+ destinations in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, the airline is one of the fastest-growing carriers on the continent. Qatar Airways holds a 49% stake, and the airline generated $464M in revenue in 2023 — an 80% jump from the prior year. With the new Bugesera International Airport on the horizon and a Skytrax Best Regional Airline in Africa award in 2025, RwandAir is at a critical inflection point between regional carrier and serious international player.
Challenge
RwandAir was in the middle of a major organizational transformation — but the leadership team lacked a shared methodology for tackling problems in a human-centered way. Decisions were being made in boardrooms, disconnected from the realities on the ground. At the operational level, aircraft turnaround coordination was entirely manual: ground crews, operations managers, and cabin teams worked without real-time visibility into each other's progress. No shared dashboard, no timing data, no way to analyze where delays were coming from or how to systematically improve performance. The airline was leaving millions in efficiency gains on the table, and the people closest to the problem had never been asked how to solve it.
Solution
The engagement started with two intensive Design Thinking training sessions for 48 leaders ranging from C-level executives to operational managers. These weren't classroom exercises — every team worked on real RwandAir challenges, from HR transformation issues to the strategic question of how to achieve 4-star airline status. The second phase was a 5-day Innovation Sprint focused on turnaround operations. Rather than starting with assumptions, I went to gemba — directly to the tarmac at Kigali International Airport — to observe turnarounds in real time. I interviewed every user involved in the process: ramp agents, cabin crew, operations controllers, and ground handlers. Using Claude Code, I designed and built a fully functional MVP — a working application that creates full operational transparency across the turnaround process and captures granular timing data for continuous performance analysis. The app went straight from the sprint into security review and implementation.
Outcome
48 leaders trained in Design Thinking. A fully functional turnaround coordination app built in 5 days — projected to save at least $2M annually. The COO fast-tracked it straight to security review and production.
The COO saw it on day 3 and said that, on the market, he'd have bought it — and put the saving at no less than $2M a year.
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