The Daedalus team collaborated with Dormont to create a breakthrough ultra-compact natural gas meter with IOT capabilities. Though Dormont and Daedalus had their own ideas about how this technology could be used, we knew that countless opportunities existed that we hadn’t yet conceived of. We invited market experts in natural gas use to join stakeholders from Dormat in an all-day facilitated session to explore current issues in natural gas use and how this new technology could solve some of those challenges.
We started the session by asking participants to consider the problems they had encountered in gas flow monitoring, including those that were most common, most costly, dangerous, or simply strange and noteworthy. We then led the group through an affinitization session to sort these problems into similar clusters that might be solved as a set. We then introduced the new technology, including what metrics it could monitor and its communication capabilities, and provided examples of how similar technology was already being used in adjacent industries. We led participants through idea-generation exercises to brainstorm how the new technology could be used to improve safety, increase cost savings, improve real-time and preventative maintenance, and to benefit the environment. After gaining consensus on the most desirable of the ideas generated, participants were led through concept-building exercises to more fully flesh out the ideas that were of particular interest, resulting in several potential product concepts.