I see it again and again. Web teams are completely overwhelmed. Volumes are so high that their most important decision is choosing what *not* to do.

In another article I described a practical method web teams can use to decide what to ignore.

But the demands keep on coming.

To help plan things week-to-week and month-to-month I divide activity into 3 broad categories. At a high level these let me estimate what can be delivered with the available people and time.

(I also use a more comprehensive model to communicate the totality of web delivery to senior decision makers.)

The 3 categories are:

1. Business-as-usual (BAU)

BAU encompasses all the normal (usually invisible) operational activity that keeps the show on the road:

• Publishing content
• Expediting QA
• Managing technology
• Curating analytics/reports
• Ensuring compliance
• Managing bugs / issues / firefighting

All else being equal, I know that BAU will consume the most of my team's effort - between 50% to 100% of time week-on-week.

2. Non-discretionary development activity

Non-discretionary development encompasses significant non-BAU things that my team must do for some reason. Some common examples are:

• Unavoidable software projects, e.g. replacement of Google Analytics with GA4.
• Mandatory legal or regulatory requirements, e.g. accessibility enhancements, cookie management, etc.
• Must-do senior management requests, e.g. if the CEO says she wants a new microsite for her favourite campaign and that it must be purple, there's no discussion. You just have to build the purple microsite.

Not only do non-discretionary tasks consume most of a web team's remaining time (25% to 50% week-on-week), they often land at very short notice.

This means that whatever plans you may have had for discretionary activity (UX, content, etc), gets pushed out and out and out...

3. Discretionary development activity

Discretionary development includes the things you and your team would like to do:

• Improving UX
• Redesigning content
• Enhancing performance
• Etc

I consider it a major win if my team gets to spend 10% of its time (half a day per week) on discretionary activity on a consistent basis. Anything above 20% (a full day a week!) is a fabulous extravagance.

Curiously many people assume that web teams spend most of their time on these discretionary tasks - 'web design', etc 😣.

They're amazed when I tell them it's what a web team does least.

Bridging this gap in understanding about the reality of modern digital management is something we need to get much better at.

Labels: Content Design, Content Strategy, UX