Carbon Zero Accelerator
Prototyping with real data
The Challenge
One of the main inputs to the project was a 70-page document, called the Calculations Framework. This document describes how carbon data could be calculated, but this was more theory than practice.
It was useful, but did not answer real-world questions like "What happens if a key piece of data (e.g. floor size) isn't available?"
The Approach
The team had to pull together to figure out how to get this to work with the sample data we were given.
We had to digest and read all 70 pages, and build out spreadsheets to ensure we were applying the calculations correctly.
We then visualised our methodology to explain it back to the client and the rest of the team, which would then inform our design our requirements, and our technical and testing approach
Rather than the client telling us “this is how it will work”, the process was more about the project team saying “this is how we think it’ll work, does this match your understanding?” and repeating that process until we were confident in our design.
The Outcome
This was all such new territory for everyone (including the client), so the project team ended up playing a bigger role in shaping up requirements than what would happen in a typical project
Our designs were grounded in a technical reality, and there was a shared understanding of data sources, where they come from and how they'd be used
A fly-through of one of many calculation spreadsheets and Miro boards