A User First Approach: Applying NOAA's Service Delivery Model through the Industry Proving Ground

Climate change is impacting every sector of the economy and is threatening the prosperity of the United States. Industries are working to adapt and build resilience, from how they source and move their goods to how they plan their infrastructure investments and operations and support climate vulnerable communities across the country. NOAA plays a crucial role in rapidly connecting industry to accessible, contextualized, and useful data to support its decision-making and protect billions of dollars in investment in the United States.

Through funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is leading the Industry Proving Grounds (IPG), a multi-million dollar effort to radically improve the delivery and industry uptake of climate data. Through the IPG, NOAA is helping key sectors of the U.S. economy–architecture and engineering, re/insurance, and retail–make climate-smart investments and build resilience. By integrating users at every stage of the service delivery model, from identifying user needs to rapidly prototyping and launching new products, the IPG is iteratively co-developing capabilities industry is asking for.

The IPG is piloting an innovative approach to user engagement by co-developing products and services with members of industry. This methodology builds on NOAA’s service delivery model through close partnership with end-users and integrating iterative feedback at every stage of product development. By applying social science best practices to a flexible product development approach, the IPG team collects user needs, translates those needs to technical requirements, develops and shares product prototypes with end-users for feedback, and updates products in real-time based on industry needs. This talk will showcase this engagement methodology, discuss lessons learned through implementing the service delivery model, and discuss how the program will continue to evolve based on these insights.