The Sketch - Plaza Space

Every so often, Starbucks will hold a large-scale event and bring together thousands of retail Coffeehouse Leaders to inspire and reignite company culture with the intention to accelerate their strategies that focus on connection, service, innovation and operational excellence. In June 2025, Starbucks held a Leadership Experience event aptly named LE | 25 in Las Vegas, Nevada, bringing together over 14,000 leaders from across North America. One of the areas at this event’s Innovation Plaza included a dedicated space for The Staffing, Scheduling and Analytics (SSA) team, which I had the pleasure of designing. According to Touch Media (who led much of the LE event planning), our booth “drove the highest level of Coffeehouse Leader engagement” in the Innovation Plaza. The overarching purpose for this project was to engage with Store Managers and District Managers, tell the story of Staffing and Scheduling, gather feedback, and co-create future work in the roster management and scheduling space.

Before creating my sketches, I thought to myself, how will this space look and feel? Having attended previous iterations of Starbucks conferences, I remember walking into my living room and closing my eyes so that I could visualize myself being there. What would I see, what would I interact with, and how would I navigate the space? The final version of my sketch pictured in the right image above (large, bottom sketch if you’re on a mobile device) was used to create the official schematic.

The idea was that we would have signage to the left that told the story of Staffing and Scheduling, a monitor in the back that featured a wordcloud of Partner responses to a specific prompt, a secondary monitor that showcased a video, a video booth as an additional platform for Partners to record their feedback, and in the center would be an area where Partners could help co-create future systems as well as have an opportunity to interact with the Staffing, Scheduling and Analytics team directly.

The Sketch - Meter Boards

My next task was to create the visual signage that would tell the story of Staffing, Scheduling and Analytics through a Partner and Customer lens. With only 16 hours between the time of our debrief regarding this aspect of the project and a scheduled presentation at 9 a.m. the next morning, it was a great challenge to be able to meet such a short turnaround. The pressure was on, but I was determined to push through and achieve the target deadline.

I knew I wanted to create a journey map that called attention to Store Manager work, key milestones that contributed to company objectives, and a section that would highlight some current scheduling innovations and ones that would be coming in the future. Incorporating Starbucks Values into the meter boards were key details that I wanted to include which lead me to using Courage, Results and Craft into my sketches. The path in my journey map began as a series of doodles, with one iteration spelling out the value Joy across the three panels. Eventually, I landed on a path that spelled out L E 25. In the final draft of the work, I also made the path dashed to resemble the stitching or thread of a Starbucks green apron.

Iconography and Illustrations

A journey map is a representation of a user’s journey with plot points across a path that provide key details and visual elements to represent ideas, subjects and themes. A critical part of the concept was spending time to explore different ideas and shapes to represent different interpretations of central information. The examples above include creating preferences on the Starbucks Partner Hours app, a Store Manager working on a laptop, a Partner raising a cup because they have the perfect amount of hours, and a Partner showing off their craft through latte art.

Video Production

In this aspect of my project I was in charge of creating a video from start to finish with my work encompassing all stages of production including planning, shooting and editing. I went through a roster of over sixty contacts and scheduled time to film various sequences in-store and captured a collection of interview clips. With some help from the SSA team, I was able to secure a few recordings of Starbucks senior leadership spotlighting numerous scheduling tools. I reviewed hours of footage and spliced together the best clips to showcase how Staffing and Scheduling has positively affected our partners, and reveal some of the innovations that were upcoming or near term. My favorite aspect was directing and filming partners in their natural environment where they create moments of connection and craft beverages using various tools and equipment, and then cutting them together to create the Partner segment of the video.

Video Booth and Flyer

Additionally, I was tasked to design the vinyl wrap that would cover the side panels of our video booth, as well as create a flyer that promoted a call to action via QR code to our feedback survey that was featured on the 18 iPads we had at our center tables. With over one hundred Partners in the space, we wanted to make sure our questionnaire was easily accessible in case no iPads were available. I wanted to ensure that branding was consistent, so I carried over design elements from my meter boards, highlighting the partner illustrations, the path that spells LE25, and Starbucks brand colors.

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