Distinguishing between products and projects in journalism

A guide to understanding the difference between product, project, program, and portfolio management in news.

Presented by Paty Gomes

I bet this situation will sound familiar to you: You work in a newsroom, and you know it’s everyone’s responsibility to contribute to your organization's success. You’ve heard about the rise of product roles in newsrooms and that taking on a product mindset can be helpful for improving a company's business model.

After bouncing around some ideas, you think you have a great product concept: a timely longform story about mental health after Covid. You plan to add interactive features to your narrative, and maybe you’ll create a podcast or link to your complimentary research. The idea sounds perfect, but you are still uncertain about whether your solution will help your company over the long term. Is this a product? It depends.

Let's analyze your solution from a product perspective to see if it meets the definition. Is your idea financially sustainable? Nope. Are the efforts needed to write the story scalable? Nope. Does the idea have a long-term impact? Hmmm, not sure. Do you have a clear audience/persona in mind? Not really. Are pageviews and comments your only success metrics? Well, yes.

I hate to be the one to bring you bad news, but although your idea may meet all the newsworthiness requirements, it is not a product. From a product standpoint, if your objective is to build something that will help the business of your company over the long-term, your solution will not accomplish this. Your idea is an editorial project.

This guide defines product, project, program, and portfolio management so that you can clearly differentiate between them and presents five ways to recognize a product in journalism.

IN PRACTICE

Use the tips and concepts in this section to cultivate a product culture in your newsroom

Understanding new roles in journalism

The complexity of producing journalism in an increasingly technological age has led to the introduction of a whole new slate of newsroom roles. One of these, product management, is the process of recognizing and solving a problem faced by a defined audience. This work may require iterating with users to outline possible solutions, prototyping and testing hypotheses, bringing up a solution, developing and launching it, and improving it over time by collecting metrics and constant feedback.

In journalism, as the industry tries to find new business models, adopting a product approach in media organizations has become more popular and resulted in dedicated product divisions and professionals. Examples of products are newsletters, mobile apps, and a subscription-based information service, all of which may be attached to monthly recurring revenue goals.

Project management, in turn, is the discipline of leading an effort clearly defined by scope, time, and budget. Compared to product management, project management usually has a shorter-time commitment, exists on a non-recurring revenue basis, and is deeply dependent on sponsors. In journalism, we normally see project management in the advertising division of media outlets, in special multimedia projects or podcasts within editorial departments, and in events. In my experience, I see people using the words projects and products interchangeably; however, conceptually, they are very different.

The least common of the four in media companies are program management and portfolio management. Program management takes project management one level up. It oversees projects that have a larger common strategic initiative, clearing dependencies and managing shared resources. Portfolio management, finally, has responsibility for the governance of a companies' projects, programs, and products. Portfolio management helps to organize, control, and prioritize initiatives, ensuring alignment throughout the organization.

Source: Program management vs. project management, Atlassian

Five ways to tell if you’re working on a product or a project in journalism

• The idea solves a user’s problem: Product exists to solve a user problem. In journalism, we are often compelled to start something new because everybody else is doing it. What are your motives for starting another podcast? Does it meet an audience need? Remember: when building a product, your user has to be in the center of your actions – you'd better know her and her needs well.

• The initiative constantly evolves versus having a clear end: Think about your favorite mobile app. Does it look today the way it looked when you first downloaded it? Probably not. Products are in constant evolution, contrary to projects, which have a specific completion timeline and then they are done. While a product is launched many times through iteration, with each release being a slight improvement over the previous one, projects are revealed to the public all at once. 

• Efforts to create and sell are scalable: When working on a product, you hope to have a long-term relationship with your users – you keep delivering on time, while they keep paying you for that. Over time, acquiring a new user for an app should be a marginal effort and easier than finding a sponsor for a new multimedia project. Similarly, delivering information daily through an established distribution channel becomes less complicated than developing and launching a new event. Product pacing is about consistency rather than intensity – it's a marathon, not a sprint.

• Scope, budget and schedule adjust according to product lifecycle: The definition of a project is a series of actions with clear scope, budget, and schedule designed to reach a specific outcome. Products are the opposite. Because you are building something that evolves constantly, scope, budget, and schedule may fluctuate depending on where the product is in its lifecycle, i.e. discovery, development, growth, maintenance, sunsetting. As you get to know your team, business, and technology better, you will be able to determine more precise estimates about costs and time to continually improve the product. 

• Success metrics are part of the process: In journalism, we think our story has impacted the audience when it has a lot of engagement on social media, the editor in chief praises our article, or our direct competitor republishes it with proper credit. But, to be honest, most of the time we don't think about metrics from the start. When working with a product, however, attention to metrics is built in the development process. We use NPS (net promoter score), acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue metrics to make sure we are generating sustainable value for both users and company.

TERMS

Definitions for product terms referenced in this guide are sourced from NPA’s crowd-sourced product glossary

Feature

A unit of design that adds functionality and value to the user experience.

Persona

A fictional person that represents a member of an intended audience. Personas are designed to represent the qualities, needs and goals of a wider audience segment.

Net Promoter Score

A research metric used to figure out what your audience thinks about a product. It’s the outcome of all those “how likely are you to recommend this newsletter to a friend or a colleague?” questions you see.

Product Lifecycle

Stages in the development of a product, i.e. ideation, discovery, development (pre-launch and post-launch), growth, maintenance, retirement. 

RELATED READINGS / RESOURCES

Product Management vs. Project Management - SVPG

Yes, Product Thinking Can Save Journalism. Six Reasons Why News Media Need Product Thinkers - Knight Lab

What is a digital product - Roman Pinchler

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paty Gomes

Paty Gomes is CPO at JOTA, where she leads the product, design and engineering team. As she transitioned from education reporter to a PM role she realized that working with products was also a way of telling a story.