Climate Adaptation Policy Monitor

DESIGN CHALLENGE

Climate change is a fact, the IPCC has stated in their most recent report that global temperature will likely increase to +2 degrees which will result in changing weather patterns and more natural disasters. Besides actions that aim to slow down climate change, the Dutch government also set a plan to help society and citizens adapt to the changing climate. The following link gives a summary of what the Dutch government is undertaking to become climate-proof:

https://klimaatadaptatienederland.nl/en/policy-programmes/

In order to become climate-proof, local policymakers of municipalities are responsible for creating sufficient policies and proper actions based on local-specific environments and problems. Since the topic is quite cutting edge for most of the cities, there are no suitable tools for them to effectively monitor their progress and evaluate their work, which is essential for a healthy policy-making loop.

Together with our partner TAUW, our team is designing a tool for the policymakers in municipalities to monitor the progress of their climate adaptation policies.

SDG GOALS

Within our project we focus on the following SDGs:

KICK-OFF

 The goal of the kick-off phase is to clarify the problem and define tasks, instead of diving into the details of a final solution. CAPtain team tried a creative way: showing a short comedy based on the imagination of the world in 2050 to start the conversation with the partner. The impressive acting of the members won not only a huge round of applause but also an insightful conversation on the design challenge. This helped the team step into further work smoothly.

 

WARMING UP

The concept of climate adaptation is relatively new for the team members. To have a deeper understanding of the design problem, the members dived into desk research and invited experts to give lessons on climate adaptation. 

Besides, the team also studied similar monitoring tools related to the topic. After analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of all these tools, the team has a clearer vision of the possible functions and components of the monitoring tool.

At the end of this phase, the team created a list of sample indicators based on the research of current policies and programs. 

 

USER RESEARCH

Besides the study on domain knowledge, it is crucial that we should gather insights from the end user. We arranged interviews with the policymakers in the local municipality, who are considered to be the major user group of our monitoring tool.

During the interviews, we asked about the daily working routine of the policymakers, including the tools they are currently using for monitoring the policies, how their tasks are assigned, and how they communicate and cooperate with other stakeholders.

Through the conversation and observation, we gained key insights from the policymakers and finalized our user persona and user journey map based on the insights.

 

USER PERSONA & USER JOURNEY MAP

 

EXPERT SESSIONS

Besides the regular sprint reviews with our partner, we also appreciate all the feedback from our peers and other parties. DSS arranges peer pitches for us at the end of each sprint. Here all the teams can practice techniques for pitching their project and giving feedback to others. Some of our guest experts also very kindly gave their feedback to us during the sprint, which helped us a lot so that we could make sure we were on the right track. Hereby we would like to say thank you to all the people who helped us during this journey.

 

TECHNICAL TRAINING

After comparing and analyzing different tools available for our partner to realize the monitoring tool finally, we chose a platform that already worked longtime with our partner TAUW. To better understand this tool and make it work best for our purpose, our team members had a compact training by the experts from GeoApps at their headquarter.

 

TEAM OUTING

Great teamwork is of course not only about work! When the weather is getting cold in the winter, we choose to burn our brains a little bit to warm up our team. The escape room experience will be an unforgettable memory for us.

 

SHOWCASE TIME

We had our final showcase in January 2023! It was one the biggest event for all the members at DSS. We had both online and offline guests. For the ones who can not join in person, we shot a video to explain our solution in a fun and easy way.

Our team CAPtain designed our showcase booth as a guided journey, starting from the design challenge we reviewed from our partner, going through all the efforts we made in the past few months, and leading to our final working prototype at the end. In this way, we showed all the visitors not only the solution itself but also our own experience and insights during our learning journey. It was a pleasure that our efforts and the quality of the work we have done have been recognized by not only our partners but also other visitors who know about our project for the first time. We also received much valuable feedback from the visitors, which can help us grow further and help our partner to develop more potential in the product.

 

WHAT OUR PARTNER SAYS

We as TAUW really enjoyed the collaboration with DSS, and specifically with team CAPtain. The topic of climate adaptation policy was very complex and also a quite foreign topic for team CAPtain. However, during our collaboration, we saw growth occurring within the team in regard to the topic of climate adaptation but also on monitoring processes. The team showed us a new perspective on dealing with the complex task of creating a climate adaptation monitor. Their view on tackling the problem form a user perspective instead of a technical perspective gave us new insides the usage and need for such a monitoring tool. Finally, the team managed to create an awesome first protype of the tool which was received very well during the showcase by multiple parties. This prototype showed great potential and will be used by TAUW to further develop the climate adaptation monitoring tool.

 

 

MEET TEAM CAPtain

Our members come from different continents of the world. We also have different backgrounds. We came together in DSS because of our shared passion and goals. We learn from each other and inspire each other every day. All these facts make us a unique and strong team that faces every challenge with optimism.

• Kiran Govande UX designer with a passion for tech and art
• Namratha Aroor Scrum master|UX Researcher and Designer
• Hanyu Xia Storyteller| UX Designer who codes
• Dorothy Iseghohi Analyzing remotely sensed and geographical data of features on the earth’s surface keeps my mind going. Interested in biodiversity conservation and modeling the impact of climate change on species.
• Tendai Fushai Analytics professional with experience in international development consulting and market research. In the past, he also managed Information Technology projects for public sector organizations.