Decisions about new engineering software are easy to delay. Busy teams, competing tools, unclear ROI. So we structure our pilots to be small enough to commit to, but real enough to test. Here's how it works, and why we've made the choices we've made.
What a CalcTree pilot looks like
A CalcTree pilot runs for roughly 4–8 weeks with a small team — typically 3 seats. Over that window we rebuild a handful of your existing Excel-based calculations and reporting workflows as CalcTree templates, then apply them to one live project.
Scope at a glance:
- 3 CalcTree subscriptions
- 3 calculation templates rebuilt from existing Excel tools
- 3 automation / reporting templates
- 1 anchor project where the templates get used in practice
- Comms via a shared Microsoft Teams or Slack channel
We do the heavy lifting
The biggest reason pilots stall isn't lack of interest — it's that the engineers who'd actually use the tool don't have time to set it up while doing their day job. Our pilot is structured around this:
- CalcTree drives the initial builds. Our team rebuilds the first one or two templates end-to-end from your existing Excel files. You provide context — a quick walkthrough, what the inputs and outputs mean — typically about 30 minutes per template.
- The rest are built collaboratively. Once your team is comfortable, we move to co-building. Useful because it means you walk away knowing how to maintain and extend the templates without us.
- Your team's total time commitment is capped at ~2 hours per week per user. That cap is the whole point. If you can't commit two hours, you can't run a real pilot of anything.
What success looks like
Success criteria are agreed at kickoff so there's no ambiguity at the end. The default set:
- All templates rebuilt in CalcTree and signed off as accurate by the relevant engineer
- All automation templates producing live output
- At least one template used on the anchor project
- The champion plus one user confirm they'd use CalcTree on their next project
These are deliberately deliverable-shaped, not behaviour-change-shaped. We don't claim "X% productivity gain by Week 8" — that's not honest inside an 8-week window. What we can commit to is producing working templates that your team has signed off on, and having at least one of them used in anger.
Timeline
- Week 0 — Kickoff. Anchor project identified, templates and users locked in.
- Weeks 1–2 — CalcTree builds the first one or two templates end-to-end.
- Middle weeks — Remaining templates built collaboratively, anchor project use begins.
- Penultimate week — Internal review by champion and users.
- Final week — Joint go/no-go meeting.
Onboarding and support
- Kickoff demo for all users (~60 min, recorded)
- In-app onboarding flow with videos and docs for self-serve
- Ongoing support via the shared comms channel, response within 24 hours
- Regular catch-up call, cadence agreed at kickoff
The risks we explicitly address
Three things commonly kill pilots. We have a specific mitigation for each:
- User availability. CalcTree drives the initial builds. User time capped at 2 hrs/week.
- No real-world test. An anchor project must be named before the pilot proceeds. Without one, we recommend delaying start.
- Inconclusive outcome. Decision meeting and success criteria are locked at kickoff, not negotiated at the end.
What happens at the end
A joint go/no-go meeting in the final week. The expansion path and pricing are agreed in advance so there's no ambiguity about what a "yes" looks like:
- Criteria met → expand to a defined number of seats or department
- Partial → an agreed remediation path or extension
- Not met → clean exit, no further commitment
That "clean exit" line matters. A pilot that can't fail isn't a pilot.
How we think about ROI
We've also written up the ROI model we build alongside every pilot — including where we deliberately undersell so the numbers are defensible. Worth a read if you're putting an internal business case together.
Next step
If you'd like to talk through a pilot for your team, [book a call] or email us. We'll send a tailored proposal and an interactive ROI model with your numbers in it.
