Help your mini-publisher teams build foundations for success
Douglas K. Smith, Quentin Hope, Tim Griggs, Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative,Take four key steps to position mini-publishing efforts for success:
- Give mini-publisher teams basic charters and ask the teams to put together operating plans needed for team success
- Regularly review and manage team performance
- Require mini-publisher teams to use the team discipline for performance
- Provide mini-publisher teams with the background and support they need to master “economics for journalists” basics
Give mini-publisher teams basic charters and ask the teams to put together operating plans needed for team success
The senior team should charter audience and platform mini-publisher teams with core direction and expectations, including: (1) the purpose/vision for the team; (2) why and how the team’s efforts matter to the future of the enterprise; and, (3) what success looks like in terms of audience and/or platform growth, engagement, innovation, revenue generation and financial contribution. The time frames for team charters might vary from, say, 1 to 3 years depending on how the teams fit in your enterprise strategy.
The teams should take these charters and come back to the senior team with detailed plans for how the teams will succeed. Team plans should reflect at least two time frames – the longer time frame of the charter as well as a shorter, say, 2 to 4 month time frame that captures what and how the team expects to progress immediately.
Operating plans must include the following elements:
Elements of a mini-publisher team operating plan
| Audience-based Mini-publisher teams | Platform-based Mini-publisher teams |
| · Target audience profile, needs and interests, content focus, etc. (see TS#1, sec. 6)
· Distribution platforms used to reach the audience (see TS#2, sec. 6) |
· Publishing platforms included under the team
· Target audiences for each of the platforms included (see TS#2, sec. 6) |
| · Team organization: core and extended membership, leader(s), reporting relationship(s) | |
| · Service vision: overarching objectives for serving and growing the target audience | · Service vision: overarching objectives for developing the platforms and serving and growing audiences through them |
| · Revenue opportunities: existing and new ways to earn greater revenue from the target audience (see TS#5, sec. 6) | · Revenue opportunities: existing and new ways to earn greater revenue from the platforms (see TS#5, sec. 6) |
| · Strategies: the key means by which the service vision and revenue opportunities will be realized | |
| · Goals: specific objectives for audience growth and revenue attainment within one year and three-year time frames, stated as SMART goals (see Performance Management chapter, sec. 6) | |
| · Partnerships: key existing or planned partnerships, including content, distribution, technology and revenue opportunity partnerships and their ties back to the goals and strategies (see TS #6, sec. 6) | |
| · Capabilities: key capabilities to be developed within the coming year, including skills, process/workflows, tools and supporting technologies | |
| · Budget: resources provided to the team, including: staff, shared service commitments, and discretionary cash budgets | |
| · Resources and investments: reallocated or new resources needed from the enterprise in the coming year, including the type, amount, timing, and strategies/goals supported | |
| · Assumption and uncertainties: key aspects of the plan that are most uncertain at this point and how they will be tested to gain more certainty | |
Regularly review and manage team performance
The senior team should regularly review the progress of mini-publisher teams. These operating reviews might happen monthly, bimonthly or quarterly. In the beginning, shorter cycle times (monthly) make most sense. Depending on the number of mini-publisher teams, such operating reviews might include all teams together – or subsets. At least quarterly, though, all the teams should gather to hear updates on their respective progress and challenges. The senior team should invite the CEO, publisher and others to attend (that is, if those folks are not part of the senior team).
The purpose of review meetings is twofold. The first to conduct a business review whose standing agenda includes:
- Reviewing performance against commitments for the period;
- Discussing issues and lessons learned related to successes as well as shortfalls in meeting targets;
- Identifying any needed enterprise-level support and cross-enterprise issues to be resolved;
- Discussing and setting commitments for the coming period (e.g., month, quarter) while adjusting any longer term objectives as needed;
- Logging identified follow-up action items including who is responsible and over what time frames for the next steps.
The second purpose is to collectively step back and assess the insights being gained and potential opportunities emerging from the work across the whole portfolio of mini-publishers. A part of this includes how best to apply what is working in some teams to the others as well as to other parts of the newsroom and/or other units of the enterprise.
Use team discipline
Mini-publisher teams are just that: teams. It’s been a quarter century since folks across all three sectors of the economy (private, nonprofit and government) have understood that the discipline and approach to team performance differs from the more familiar boss-subordinate discipline for individual accountability and performance. Here’s how the two disciplines compare:
| Boss/individual: Single Leader Discipline | Team Discipline |
| Boss in control | Small number (less than 7 or 8 is best) |
| Boss makes and communicates decisions. | Complementary skills and perspectives |
| Boss sets goals and decides individual roles, contributions, and individual work products. | Common/shared purpose |
| Boss sets pace and chooses how the group will work together. | Common/shared SMART outcome-based performance goals |
| Boss evaluates results and makes adjustments. | Commonly agreed upon working approach, including collective work products |
| Boss establishes benchmarks and standards. | Both individual and shared/mutual accountability for results |
| Number only limited by boss’ attention span. |
Here’s how to apply the team discipline to mini-publisher teams:
| Elements of Team Discipline | Mini-publisher audience teams | Mini-publisher platform teams |
| Small number (typically 7 or fewer) | Avoid large numbers of folks assigned to a team | Avoid large numbers of folks assigned to a team |
| Complementary skills and perspectives | Assemble team members who bring skill and perspective reflecting audience, content, platform, marketing, ad sales, and/or technology/tools as demanded for the team’s performance. | Assemble team members who bring skill and perspective reflecting platform, audience, content, marketing, ad sales, and/or technology/tools as demanded for the team’s performance. |
| Common purpose | To grow, engage, innovate, serve and monetize specific, targeted audiences
|
To optimize and innovate how platforms are best used to serve and monetize audiences |
| Common goals | Specific measureable goals/outcomes for size, growth, engagement and monetization of target audiences
Manage the P&L for the target audience |
Specific measureable goals/outcomes for the quality of the user experience plus competitive functionality as well as traffic, engagement, brand and monetization goals tailored for platforms you own versus platforms you don’t own that send you traffic versus platforms you don’t own that do not send you traffic
Manage the P&L for the platform group/cluster |
| Commonly agreed upon working approach | The work the team needs to do to succeed
How the team divvies up and reviews progress against that work How the team will coordinate with folks who are not part of the team How team members will problem solve together when they face uncertainties and/or get stuck |
The work the team needs to do to succeed
How the team divvies up and reviews progress against that work How the team will coordinate with folks who are not part of the team How team members will problem solve together when they face uncertainties and/or get stuck |
| Mutual accountability for purpose, goals and approach (in addition to individual accountability) | How the team will go about building a shared understanding for blending what’s needed for success from each team member and that team member’s functional perspective
How the team will ensure that only the team can succeed or fail – that is, move toward a ‘we’ orientation as opposed to just a sum of individual best performance |
How the team will go about building a shared understanding for blending what’s needed for success from each team member and that team member’s functional perspective
How the team will ensure that only the team can succeed or fail – that is, move toward a ‘we’ orientation as opposed to just a sum of individual best performance |
The team discipline is particularly needed because more than a decade of shrinking revenues, downsizing and diminished market power have left the legacy newspaper metro, local and regional news enterprises that are still standing with starkly fewer and more constrained resources. At the same time, metros, locals and regionals must get much more done than ever before if they are to navigate the demands required for financial sustainability and success in the midst of fragmenting audiences using multiple and constantly changing platforms to access news and information from numerous and growing numbers of competitors and other sources (including the audiences’ friends and followers).
All of which means: Many more challenges requiring much more work that must get done by a lot fewer people with access to more limited resources. Legacy metros, locals and regionals no longer have the luxury afforded by vast newsrooms and business staffs with the capacity to assign work/jobs to different functions and individuals within the functions. So, metros and others must get good at teaming. There is no alternative.
Yet, these constraints requiring more teaming also raise specific questions and dilemmas to address in forming and guiding mini-publisher teams, including:
- Do all mini-publisher team members need to be full-time? Each team member, though, must have ‘skin in the game’ and give the team her/his full attention. In addition, you need to make each person’s participation and contribution to team success an explicit part of personal performance plans and evaluation.
- How many teams can an individual be on at the same time? Probably no more than 3.
- Is team membership the only way to tap into expertise? Individuals with expertise might also be occasional resources to the team – whether as advisors and/or implementers of specific tasks. For example, audience teams can and should implement directions from platform teams. Tech/tool makers might fulfill team needs without being team members. Marketing and ad sales folks might provide ongoing advice to teams. If this approach is used, teams must work hard to ensure these experts have a shared understanding of the team’s purpose and goals and how they can contribute to team success.
- How should team members bridge responsibilities to the team with responsibilities to their ‘home’ functions? For reporters and editors on audience teams, team participation is participating in the ‘home’ function. This question pertains to folks from technology, marketing, sales, finance and other functions – as well as reporters/editors who might participate in platform teams.
In approaching the question, first avoid a trap: team members must not see themselves as representatives of their home function whose job is to be a watchdog protecting their function’s interests. That is a path to failure. Team members are not on the team to protect their home functions. They are there to hold themselves individually and mutually accountable with other team members for overall team success.
Instead of protecting home functions, such team members should act as bridges between the team and the function to optimize success for both through: (1) keeping key leaders and others in the home function updated on the team’s purpose, goals and progress; (2) advocating on behalf of the team in home function discussions and choices that affect team success; and, (3) obtaining home function human and financial resources, data, analytics, and needed workflow or other changes critical to the team’s success.
- How can teams build the cross-functional shared understanding demanded for success? Members of a mini-publisher team must build a shared understanding of how and why their respective skills, experiences and perspectives matter to achieving the purposes and performance goals of the team. Given the legacy of church/state and functionalization within church/state, mini-publisher team members must work quickly to educate one another in ways that break down walls while building shared appreciation for what each other do and how that matters to the team.
- Who should be the team leader? The team leader might be anyone from any function – whether edit or business side. It is likely, of course, that team leaders emerge from the newsroom for audience teams and from digital specialists for platform teams. You might also consider having co-team leaders – one from the edit or platform side, one from the business side.
What matters most in a team leader, though, is less about functional expertise and more about an individual’s experience, proclivity, orientation and beliefs regarding:
- The general manager and whole business perspective
- A personal desire to own and drive the success of a business, product or service (Note well: folks with this kind of drive are also most likely to leave your enterprise if not afforded the chance to lead a mini-publisher team)
- The networking abilities to build the personal relationships and organizational connections within and beyond the enterprise demanded for team success
- An external orientation that includes a natural interest in audience needs and interests as well as market opportunities
- A willingness to take personal accountability for achieving results
- A strong belief in team, especially that only a team can succeed or fail together
Provide mini-publisher teams the background and support they need to master “economics for journalists” basics
Newsroom team members must master the basic business understanding of the market dynamics and business side efforts aimed at sustaining the enterprise. This means learning basic business concepts, digital media revenue sources and flows, and the fundamentals of sales processes and cycles. Much of this understanding will emerge from putting Table Stakes #1 through #6 in place.
Conversely, business side team members need to understand the basics of journalism practices and ethics, the mission and community service ethos of journalists, the connections reporters and editors have into the community, and the rhythms of news cycles and content production workflows of the newsroom.
Building this mutual understanding and broader base of perspective is not a one-shot thing. It happens over time – and should be an explicit part of each mini-publishing team’s agenda. Suggestions include:
- Shadowing fellow team members. For example, a reporter/producer might attend the weekly sales meeting while a sales team member might observe a reporter pull together and publish a story
- Having team members give primers on a specific topic they know well (e.g. 10 minutes on the revenue flow behind the video player during a team meeting)
- Having team members bring guests to meet with the team to exchange perspectives (such guests might include outsiders as well—for example, a digital media buyer from a leading local ad agency).