Iterate and improve frequently

Summary

Make sure you have the capacity, people, and technical flexibility to iterate and improve the service frequently, focusing on improvements that deliver the most value.

Why it's important

Services are never 'finished'. Once you've got real people using your service, you need to iterate and improve it.

This means more than doing basic maintenance, like fixing bugs in code or deploying security patches. It means responding to feedback and changes in user needs and behaviour, technology, and DfE policy.

It also means being able to make substantial improvements throughout the service's lifetime.

How to meet this standard in every phase

You'll be assessed on what you've done to meet this standard at service assessments. However, even if the service you're working on is not being assessed, it's good practice to consider how you'll meet this standard point.

All phases

Things to consider:

• continued research and iteration based on feedback, data, and metrics. The Becoming a teacher design history documents how they've done this
• a process to review content and check that it's up-to-date, reflects current policy, or is retired
• where team priorities lie and which improvements will deliver the most value
• methods to iterate and improve design when there are time constraints
• how the team will work together to prioritise a backlog
• how the team will deploy software regularly
• having the right people in the team to keep improving the service

Profession specific guidance

Each DDaT profession in DfE has their own community and guidance.

• User Research Manual
• Design Manual
• Architecture
• Technical Guidance