Article by Sam Dunne, Head of Digital Delivery at Eleven Miles

1. Write to-do list

2. Make coffee

3. Check emails

4. Fix bugs

5. Test some changes

6. Check tracking metrics

7. Repeat

It can be very easy to fall into a routine of repeating similar tasks on a daily basis. Far from being someone who goes sky-diving or bungee-jumping weekly, I’m guilty of this myself and know the comfort of sticking to what feels safe in day-to-day life. 

This is no different when it comes to managing digital products. A cycle of maintaining what you have or making changes that feel right can mean, before you know it, you’ve spent months tweaking and patching without seeing any noticeable rewards.

We know from our experience that breaking from this mould can help deliver greater results for businesses and their customers / users. Being bolder with the work you undertake can be daunting so how can you provide assurances that it will deliver the results you want, especially when there can be a sizable financial investment?

Using Evidence To Validate Your Ideas

Evidence is the tangible, objective validation or dismissal of an idea. Christopher Hitchens once said, “what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” In other words, if you don’t have facts to back you up then who’s to say your idea for what your customers want isn’t actually what your customers firmly don’t want?

If you feel developing blog functionality on your website would be a great way of traffic and increasing brand awareness, for example, you need to ask yourself whether you know this to be the case.

Analysing data or conducting user research are two common ways of gaining this certainty. There is a seemingly endless range of methodologies you can call on to help you. 

For example, you could comb through Google Analytics to understand where users drop off most commonly in a conversion funnel, run an A|B test to see which version of a new form drives more newsletter sign-ups, or conduct interviews with end users to understand what functionality users would expect in a new feature launch.

Using Evidence To Ideate and Innovate

“Sam, what does this have to do with creating a roadmap of work?”, I hear you ask.

Well, while you can use various research techniques to validate whether a specific change will land well with end users and customers, you can also conduct research to generate ideas and drive innovation.

At Eleven Miles, we use research as part of a combination of 3 key inputs to generate a backlog of tasks that can form a digital roadmap. There are: 

1. Our client’s knowledge of their customers and unique brand proposition

2. Our technological and creative expertise and experience

3. Objective evidence derived from user research or data analysis

There are a variety of steps we can take for each of the inputs, chosen based on the needs of our clients and the position of their current digital offering. 

Once we have a healthy backlog of deliverables, led by the evidence gathered from our research and data analysis, we can produce a plan for delivering these improvements that typically span anywhere from 3 to 12 months. This will factor in client milestones for the months ahead and fit within their budgets, as well as ensuring maintenance can run in parallel.

Keeping It Fresh

We understand that clients need to see the tangible value in the work delivered through a roadmap. Working with them, we set a range of KPIs that are informed by their business objectives, which can be used to prioritise deliverables in the backlog. 

The KPIs are revisited at regular intervals to measure the impact of our changes. They become a regular part of our conversations with clients to allow us to respond quickly by re-prioritising the backlog should business objectives shift.

It’s important to remember that managing a backlog is a collaborative exercise and should be something that is be revisited frequently so you can keep up with ever changing user behaviours and expectations. 

As the old adage goes “those who snooze lose” but those who don’t feed research into their decision-making will find it much harder to turn their hard work and investment into positive results.

If you would like a hand steering your next digital brief, get in touch and our team can take the reigns.