The tailor-made content will assist news product thinkers in addressing a host of specific challenges they regularly face.

Great news for news product thinkers preparing for the New Year! We just released 8 new Guides in Product Kit that cover specific news product challenges.

The recently released Guides cover how to build a product team, customize efficient collaborative workflows, structure product research, align and engage key stakeholders, prioritize product roadmaps and more! 

Product Kit is a growing catalog of community-created product guides for news organizations developed by Jessica Morrison in collaboration with News Catalyst and News Product Alliance. Support for Product Kit comes from the Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund.

Now, the NPA product kit contains a total of 19 Guides, covering a wide range of real-life scenarios facing product managers and teams working in news media. There’s no better time to dig into the Product Kit!

Check out the new Guides below:

Distinguishing between products and projects in journalism by Paty Gomes.  

The differences between product, project, program, and portfolio management may seem complex. This guide defines all of them so that you can clearly see their main aspects, and presents five ways to recognize a product in journalism.

Aligning stakeholders around product: How to align newsroom stakeholders for product prioritization and decision-making by Ankita Mukhopadhyay.

The creation of every news product requires the effort and input of multiple stakeholders. This guide helps on the difficult task of aligning stakeholders on complex product-oriented projects.

Planning for effective product research by Ariel Zirulnick.

Product research is vital for including the user's perspective in a product. But how do you establish objectives in order to do this? This guide helps to create a project plan for effective product research.

How to collect, organize and prioritize product requests by Adam Oxford.

One of the main questions in product management is 'what to do next?' Different teams may sometimes bombard you with a backlog of competing priorities. This guide helps to give some clarity in those moments.

How to sunset a product by Elite Truong.

It's common to talk about new products, but products also need to end at some point. There’s a healthy and transparent way of sunsetting products that no longer serve user needs, while making space for new development.

Creating a product team from scratch by Jessica Morrison and Kate Travis.

Now that product is an increasingly frequent topic for news organizations, several practitioners want to create teams where they can put product principles in practice. This guide outlines a way to create a newsroom product team with limited or existing resources.

Scaling a product team by Eric Ulken. 

This guide helps a team to build capacity while growing credibility as a driver of business value. It presents a structure for teams to grow in a healthy and sustainable way.

Working collaboratively with design and development by Cassie Wimberly & Sarah Featherstone

One of a product manager’s most important tasks is to foster collaboration and communication among teams. This guide provides techniques for working better with designers and developers.

Huge thanks to the generous authors Paty Gomes, Ankita Mukhopadhyay, Ariel Zirulnick, Adam Oxford, Elite Truong, Kate Travis, Eric Ulken, Cassie Wemberly, and Sarah Featherstone. A special shoutout to the Project Lead Jessica Morrison, and the rest of the production team who edited, designed and helped produce these incredible resources including,Heather Bryant, Tony Elkins, and Feli Carrique.