Improvement plan · Step 7 of 7: Improve

One fix a week, proved by next month's score

The habit that keeps a council website improving after the project team has gone home.

Get the plan template All seven steps

The problem

Time is your greatest enemy. Whatever is shouting loudest gets the day, and websites don't shout. Often the problem isn't knowing what to fix; it's having the time to fix it. Without a habit, the fixes you found in steps 1 to 6 join the pile.

The story

In 1969 Sir Robin Knox-Johnston became the first person to sail single-handed non-stop around the world. His boat wasn't the biggest or newest, and it started with a leak. His water tanks were contaminated, his self-steering failed and the leak got worse. He got home after 312 days because every day he checked the rigging and assumed something would break. When it did, it was a job on the list, not a disaster.

When I led a team of twenty Drupal developers at CTI Digital, I shared his story. A website needs the same engineering mindset: check it often, expect things to break, and work the list.

What to do

Set up a working group. A sponsor who champions the work, and people from the services the task touches. Accessibility is a useful ally: it is a legal duty, which gives the work weight.
Collect the fixes from your map, reports and feedback.
Rank them on a simple scorecard: residents affected, demand for the service, dates, equality impact, risk, and how long it's been waiting.
Estimate the effort and who else you need.
Keep an ordered list and protect time for it every week.
Measure the result against the step 1 objective, and tell the wider council what changed.

Show what a fix is worth. Say 200 residents a quarter finish the online missed bin report, 2.0% of those who visit the bin pages. Ten residents have said the address look-up fails on their Android phone, and your step report shows 7% leave at that step. The fix takes 5 days, about £2,500. If it lifts the finish rate to 2.5%, that is 50 more reports a quarter online and 50 fewer calls. That isn't a hard sell to a head of service.

When you test a change, be brave. Small tweaks at the edges rarely show up; test bold changes against the current page so you can see a real difference.

In rowing, the crews that win year after year are aligned to one mission, listen and support each other, encourage new ideas, reflect on every performance, focus on long-term gains and keep working on efficiency. A web team is a crew too: designer, developer, content writer, search, analytics and the service, all pulling the same way.

Then go round again with the next task.