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Review Requests Template

This document defines the standard required before requesting a review at EnergyAE.

The goal is to:

  • Ensure high-quality, self-checked work
  • Reduce review time and cognitive load
  • Prevent reviewers from re-doing the work
  • Build independent, high-performing engineers

This document defines the required format for any type of review for work at EnergyAE.

It applies to:

  • Gate A/B reviews
  • TRNSYS deck template development
  • Reports/articles/blogs
  • Quotes/invoices
  • Client communications
  • Automation tools
  • Any other internal deliverable

First, check the work yourself

Before submitting any work for review, you must first check the work yourself.

Tip: take a short mental break between the “creating” phase and the “reviewing” phase. These require different parts of your brain. It is difficult to create/write and review/edit at the same time.

Checking the work yourself might look like:

  • Going through Gate A/B checklists yourself before requesting others to do so.
    • Finding your own errors will greatly speed up the whole review process, as every error takes a reviewer time to compile.
  • Sanity checking your own work. For example:
    • compare numbers against relevant benchmarks
    • looking through parameters and ouputs and thinking “Does that make sense?”
  • Testing. This might look like:
    • reviewing the plotter and checking control behaviour, temperatures ranges, etc.
    • running through the code as a user and trying to break it.

Motivation

We need to make review tasks easy for the reviewer, as jumping into a new context is draining.

A review request needs a minimum amount of information. It is not:

  • “Please check this report.”
  • “I think this template is working, can you check please.”

Review Format

The standard template for a review request should be:

  1. CONTEXT
    1. PROJECT NAME: (i.e. AE523 ESW)
    2. PROJECT TYPE: (i.e. Commercial VEU/ESS modelling & submission)
    3. OBJECTIVE: (i.e. modelling 4x commercial HPWH packages)
    4. MONDAY.COM ITEM LINK: (i.e. link Monday.com item URL)
  2. WORK DONE
    1. Explain what you have done in key bullet points.
  3. REVIEW SCOPE
    1. What exactly do you want reviewed? For example:
      1. Standard Gate A/B review
      2. Check any assumptions
      3. Check control logic makes sense
      4. Verify pricing
      5. Review article structure, wording or level for audience
  4. WHAT I HAVE CHECKED
    1. Explain what tests or checks you have conducted yourself to ensure the work is correct.
    2. For example:
      1. TRNSYS - completed own Gate A/B, verified all parameters against supporting evidence, tested control logic, sense-checked certificate values
      2. REPORT - fact-checked claims, checked structure, conducted AI critical review
      3. QUOTE/INVOICE - checked alignment with client emails, purchase order, latest pricing, GST
  5. EVIDENCE
    1. Provide the files that show your working:
      1. TRNSYS
        1. Deck templates that you have developed
        2. Plots showing example behaviour
        3. Output files showing expected results
        4. Table of results and discussion
      2. REPORT
        1. Provide your latest draft
        2. Provide supporting literature that you reference in the article if relevant
      3. TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
        1. Spreadsheet with calculations
        2. TRNSYS TOOL that includes the calculations you need checked
  6. UNCERTAINTIES
    1. What are you unsure about?
    2. What assumptions do you need checked?

Review Template

Use the following template:

  • CONTEXT
    1. PROJECT NAME:
    2. PROJECT TYPE:
    3. OBJECTIVE:
    4. MONDAY.COM ITEM LINK:
  • WORK DONE *
  • REVIEW SCOPE *
  • WHAT I HAVE CHECKED *
  • EVIDENCE *
  • UNCERTAINTIES *

Worked Examples

The following examples show how the review template should be used.

Gate A modelling review request

Email subject: AE642 GOODHEAT - Review Request

  • CONTEXT
    1. PROJECT NAME: AE642 GOODHEAT
    2. PROJECT TYPE: Residential AS/NZS 4234 modelling
    3. OBJECTIVE: Re-modelling 3x Goodheat systems based on updated CVC 5125 report.
    4. MONDAY.COM ITEM LINK: [Monday.com item link]
  • WORK DONE
    • Based on previous project AE620 GOODHEAT
    • Updated AS/NZS 5125.1 related data
    • Prepared AS/NZS 4234 modelling & reports
  • REVIEW SCOPE
    • Gate A review
    • Particular emphasis on AS/NZS 5125.1 inputs as this is the major change
    • Final deliverable is AS/NZS 4234 reports only
  • WHAT I HAVE CHECKED
    • Conducted self Gate A review
    • Checked all 5125 inputs consistent from latest 5125 report through to 4234
  • EVIDENCE
    • See files here: Energy AE\Files - Projects08\AE642_GOODHEAT\05-Submission\4234 Reports\GOODHEAT Reports
  • UNCERTAINTIES
    • Unsure about whether I have used correct value of maximum temperature as per 5125.

Review Meetings

For complex projects, it may be much easier to provide your reviewer clear understanding by organising a short meeting where you can:

  • Explain the project scope and objective
  • Explain the steps that you have taken
  • Show examples of the project outputs (plotters, code operation, etc)
  • Ask questions and brainstorm approach

Summary

In summary, review requests ask a lot of others cognitive energy as they jump into a new project headspace, so we need to respect that by:

  • Make the reviewer’s life as easy as possible
  • Checking our work first (after a break) to minimise simple errors being picked up by reviewers
  • Providing full context as per above template to answer any obvious questions straight off the batt, and giving all the information the reviewer needs to understand the project
  • Organising a 30-minute meeting for complex projects

If we follow these steps, we will save each other’s mental energy, reduce errors, and carve out more time for our own meaningful work.

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