Teaching product methods in the newsroom

How to explain product in a newsroom and get stakeholder buy-in

Presented by Adriana Lacy

In technology companies, much of product management is overseeing the product at all stages of its lifecycle, which includes activities like product research, development, collaboration, launch and iteration. In a news organization, this role involves working within the bounds of journalism ethics and with stakeholders from editorial, business, and technology teams to serve  a news audience. 

The success of news products hinges on each person throughout the organization having an understanding of the product vision, its impact on the audience and what role they play in the development and implementation of the product. Developing a shared understanding of product methods and processes across teams allows newsrooms to be agile when it comes to product innovation and serving audience needs.

This guide offers practical tips to help your newsroom teams develop a shared understanding of what it means to develop and maintain products for a news audience. The references section below provides additional background on the growth of product thinking and product management in news organizations. 

(Source: Canva)

IN PRACTICE

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

Align on a product vision

A product vision is the guiding star for any product development. It will guide the research, implementation and iteration of your product. Ask newsroom leaders to describe their product vision and help them find alignment to create a unified product vision statement. A vision statement should be forward-looking, revolve around your audience and emphasize your product’s unique value proposition or benefit to your audience. Everyone in the newsroom should be aware of the product vision and where they play a role. 

Rally stakeholders around your product

Stakeholders are collaborators from across the newsroom and their support can either make or break product development. When seeking stakeholder support, consider the following:

• Motive: What motivates the decisions of your stakeholders? What do they care about the most? Understanding this makes it a lot easier to get stakeholder buy-in. 

• Alignment: How can you bring your stakeholders together? It’s a lot easier to reach stakeholder agreement  if your colleagues understand that their ideas are taken into consideration and they feel they have a stake in the product outcome. 

• Consistency: Who needs information and when? It’s not enough to simply gather ideas from stakeholders and set goals at the beginning of product planning. Reaffirm stakeholder goals and provide updates throughout the development and iteration of a product.

This is the roadmap template available at Miro.com. Many online tools have templates to help start your roadmap. (Source: Miro)

Build a shareable product roadmap

In the same way that a story budget shows what the newsroom will focus on in coming hours, days, and weeks, the product roadmap is a list of near-term product goals and priorities. It outlines the direction, priority and progress of your product over time. You can think of it as a plan of action that combines both the short- and long-term goals for the product and the plan to achieve them. It’s important that your roadmap include at least these four things: a timeline, features, goals and owners. 

Get feedback from your audience

Audience feedback is vital to the success of your products because it allows you to understand the needs of your audience and whether your product is meeting those needs. But gathering audience feedback through surveys, focus groups, interviews or beta testing on new products is resource-intensive work. Make the case for product research by explaining that incorporating audience feedback early in the development process can help your team avoid embarrassing mistakes later. It’s important to ensure that audience testing objectives are specific and measurable, so that what you learn can be implemented in current and future products. 

The test, learn, build, repeat loop. (Source: News Product Alliance)

Create a product feedback loop 

A product feedback loop—test, learn, build, repeat— is an important part of audience-focused product development. It can also be a useful way to engage newsroom stakeholders. By sharing what you learn about what your audience thinks of the product, what they love, and what might cause confusion, you have an opportunity to bring newsroom stakeholders into the development process. Create a product feedback loop by sharing what you learn from your audience to help your stakeholders understand that iterating on your product is an ongoing process.

TERMS

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

Stakeholder

A person with interest in or who may be affected by your product’s outcome. Stakeholders may be internal and cross-departmental (e.g. editorial, marketing, development, etc.), and external (e.g. product audience, user base).

Stakeholder management

Identifying and balancing the needs and goals of your stakeholders which may include status updates, progress tracking, negotiation, re-alignment, guided prioritization, etc.

Product roadmap

A forward-looking list of business or product priorities, often visible to teams, the company, or the public. Roadmap initiatives or tasks might be grouped by time, e.g. quarter, or feature.

RELATED READINGS/RESOURCES

Journalism Has Been Disrupted. Can Product Thinking Save It? - Northwestern University Knight Lab

Managing Digital Products in a Newsroom Context - Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas

The importance of product thinking for news - Twipe Digital Publishing

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adriana Lacy

Adriana Lacy is a journalist focused on audience engagement, social media platforms, and product development. Currently, she is the digital and audience engagement editor at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, a journalism educator and audience consultant, advising newsrooms on best practices for reporters and editors online, off-platform strategy, and incorporating technology and product knowledge into newsrooms.

Puedes leer la guía traducida y adaptada al español por nuestros aliados de SembraMedia aquí: Enseñar metodología de Producto en la redacción

Você pode ler o guia traduzido e adaptado para português por nossos aliados da AJOR aqui: Ensinando metodologias de produto na redação: Como explicar a mentalidade de produto em uma redação e conseguir a adesão da equipe

Puoi leggere questa guida tradotta e adattata in italiano dalla nostra associata Clara Attene: Introdurre il product management in redazione