Up until our last post, the New Web Estate project had been quite theoretical. We found ourselves speaking in the abstract about everything: “Once the governance is in place, it will be easier to manage everything” … “We will just fly that information into a page from a data list” … “The CMS will handle this content and take other content from that database”. And so on.

When it comes to implementation, the vision gets tested and you realise that what you want could look very different.

With governance, you find that organisational structures look great on paper, but trying to get consensus on them in reality is much tougher – especially where budgets are tight.

The technical implementation, during the theoretical stage, can be kicked down the road to the tune of, “That’s a job for the developers and the IT department.” In reality, the decades of technical debt built up at Sussex mean that shifting from theory to practice means a slew of spreadsheets and diagrams that incrementally move you all collectively towards the most granular and specific instructions needed to build a CMS.

Usability and design, as always, comes under scrutiny and trade-offs have to be made between what looks good technically, artistically and politically – as well as what works accessibly.

I recall saying some months ago, “We’re getting to the point where the rubber hits the road.” We’re now driving the thing and we’re having to live with it being a bit daunting, uncomfortable and uncertain at times. Informally, I’ve also referred to this time as “when push comes to shove”, “the doing phase”, “walking the walk” and “the sweary stage” of the project, depending on my mood.

Creating the conditions for this change, to try to change how people think about digital, has been a monumental effort. We’re now in the depths of design sprints with another agency (more to follow in another post) and, while we don’t know exactly what the road ahead looks like, we know the destination will be worth it and I wouldn’t trade the journey in for anything else right now.