As the NewTREND project is rapidly coming to an end, the consortium is not stopping, and is just getting started in showcasing the project results to relevant stakeholders throughout Europe.
The technical partners joined forces with communication and exploitation partners to organize a set of training session with the tri-fold goal of facilitating the adoption of the software toolset developed in NewTREND, showcasing project results to potential Stakeholders, and collecting a direct feedback from users.
Last Friday (20 of July 2018) we held the first NewTREND training session in Sant Cugat, Spain. The event was organized at Ajuntament de Sant Cugat, one of the project Demo Cases, which also supported and co-organized the event together with STAM.
The training session was attended by a dozen trainees, giving it a cozy and extremely interactive vibe. After a brief introduction to the project and of the session agenda, to present and introduce the methodology and phases of a retrofitting project we had the great help of Dr Jakob Energy research; at the end of the presentation of the NewTREND methodology, Uli Jakob coordinated a hands-on session based on the use of the Manual describing the conduct of the developed collaborative design system (that can be downloaded here).
After that, Marco Barbagelata from STAM presented the NewTREND software tools and its functionalities. The public seemed engaged and positive about the project results and had the possibility to test the software, supervised by project partners. The new paper-version of the User Manual for The NewTREND Collaborative Design Platform (CDP) (downloadable in soft-copy CDP_user_manual) was shared with them and they had the possibility to see it first-hand and provide us useful tips on how to improve it.
After lunch it was time to receive stakeholders feedback on what the NewTRENDers have been working for the last three years. They all agreed on the fact that, even the ones who have used similar software, the NewTREND toolset has more ergonomic and user-friendly user interface. Functionalities were what the trainees greatly appreciated, especially the possibility of using different simulation ‘modes’. Trainees also suggested the possibility to sell licenses “per project” instead of a more traditional “time slot” license.
Another general agreement was the need for an even more interactive iteration, in which the platform itself suggests, for example, which would be the best software mode to use, based on the information you have.
The possibility to have a forecast of the Return of investment and of the payback period was unanimously appreciated as it was pointed out that financial planning functionalities and dedicated templates are available on the CDP.
After the positive first stop in Spain, next week on the 1st of August 2018, STAM, ABUD, and MUAS will be in Budapest for a new training session, strengthened by the lessons learnt in Sant Cugat.
Stay tuned.
