CLARIFYING EXPECTATIONS
A SOLID GAME PLAN that everyone understands and executes — without fail — is the key to any venture's success.
IT IS IMPERATIVE TO OFFER STAFF MEMBERS accurate timetables for projects in relation to one another. This helps quantify deadlines and thoroughly clarifies expectations.
MY CREATION AND USE OF GANTT CHARTS help keep everyone on the same page and helps reassure those sometimes nervous managers. These can be posted within all departments and reissued as deadlines and/or expectations shift.
IT IS IMPERATIVE TO OFFER STAFF MEMBERS accurate timetables for projects in relation to one another. This helps quantify deadlines and thoroughly clarifies expectations.
MY CREATION AND USE OF GANTT CHARTS help keep everyone on the same page and helps reassure those sometimes nervous managers. These can be posted within all departments and reissued as deadlines and/or expectations shift.
PHASE I PLANNING
BERLINER INSTALLATION
THE TIMES OF SHREVEPORT
SEPTEMBER 2008
KENNETH AMOS
TO: ALAN ENGLISH
Local Information Center
TOP MANAGERS (Alan English, Rod Richardson)
■ Clearly state desires for your new product (especially Daily vs. Sunday). (October) Attributes may include:
--Commitment to public service and investigative journalism
--Attitude
--Consistency
--Sophistication
--More color
--Sense of Place
--New story forms that respect and fully serve readers’ interests
--Helping readers live smarter, make better decisions and better navigate their newspaper and life in Shreveport, Bossier City and Southwest Louisiana
--Time management for The Times’ readers (and its staff).
--Implementing new sales opportunities for Advertising
■ Stress leadership and accountability via monthly guidepost updates (October).
■ Create realistic expectations/approaches and establish incremental deadlines for staff training and prototype production. (October)
■ Develop, post and maintain Gantt timeline and accompanying white board in prominent position within the LIC. Keep electronic version up to date. The Gantt chart placed within the LIC will become a focal point for prototype updates, internal conversation about project progression. (October)
--Encourage and value discussion and differences (there will be many)
--Recognize and reward progress
■ Review and analyze committee reports to refine target audiences and assign champions to ensure their ongoing representation. Communicate key decisions to entire staff regarding daily content placement that will address. (November)
--Baby Boomers
--Men Over 35
--Long-term readers who have recently canceled subscriptions (time, political persuasion, cost, content, etc)
■ Consider and implement planned obsolescence of time-consuming or outmoded features, products or organizational components. (December)
■ Create and promote a mechanism (perhaps beginning online) aimed at readers to advise them, tap into their impressions and begin allowing them to take part in the process of creating a new version of The Times. (December)
■ Develop staffing strategy that will address a 20 percent increase in page production. (December)
SECTION EDITORS (Velda Hunter, Scott Ferrell, Kathie Rowell Craig Durrett)
■ Contribute to the Content Analysis Team by prioritizing types of stories, features, project work. (October)
■ Prepare and deliver complete budgets that consider the needs of designers. (October)
■ Identify employees with the capabilities, desire and need to deliver increased productivity. (October)
■ Plan and work in advance. (October)
■ Submit a game plan to Top Managers that prioritizes pages requiring “skilled design” vs. pagination. (November)
■ Contact syndicates and third-party providers. (December)
CONTENT ANALYSIS (Scott Anderson)
■ Create a vehicle that will both query and provide a wide and precise representative of readers’ views. (October)
■ Delivery weekly reports to Top Managers that outline progress and plans to approach key issues (October)
■ Based on findings and analysis, deliver to Top Managers as seven-page document that outlines visions for content for each day of the week. (November)
CONTENT DELIVERY (Jeff Benson)
■ Begin with a clean slate, sans rules related to presentation. (October)
--Determine new rules and clearly communicate their necessity.
■ Identify employees with the capabilities, desire and need to deliver increased productivity. (October)
■ Set realistic”mid-stream” deadlines and ensure adherence. (October)
■ Work with Advertising to establish plausible Advertising adjacencies and objectives throughout new product. (October)
■ Meet regularly to monitor progress and be highly visible as a mentor. (October)
■ Review with all designers the contents of committee reports from which content decisions will be made (November)
■ Work with Advertising to clarify ad measurements and edition planning procedures (November)
■ Submit to Top Managers a seven-page packaging vision document (for each day of the week), along with several individual page prototypes to showcase significant proposals. (November)
■ Fully develop two complete sets of prototypes based on information based on content information and LIC and Advertising decisions. (December)
CUSTOM PUBLISHING (Barbara Widner, Matt Whitehead)
■ Decide, in conjunction with Publisher and Editor, best format (broadsheet or tabloid) for Voices products. (November).
■ Prepare one complete set of prototypes that present new opportunities for reader-submitted news as the primary value of these products, with continued visual energy. (December)
BERLINER INSTALLATION
THE TIMES OF SHREVEPORT
SEPTEMBER 2008
KENNETH AMOS
TO: ALAN ENGLISH
Local Information Center
TOP MANAGERS (Alan English, Rod Richardson)
■ Clearly state desires for your new product (especially Daily vs. Sunday). (October) Attributes may include:
--Commitment to public service and investigative journalism
--Attitude
--Consistency
--Sophistication
--More color
--Sense of Place
--New story forms that respect and fully serve readers’ interests
--Helping readers live smarter, make better decisions and better navigate their newspaper and life in Shreveport, Bossier City and Southwest Louisiana
--Time management for The Times’ readers (and its staff).
--Implementing new sales opportunities for Advertising
■ Stress leadership and accountability via monthly guidepost updates (October).
■ Create realistic expectations/approaches and establish incremental deadlines for staff training and prototype production. (October)
■ Develop, post and maintain Gantt timeline and accompanying white board in prominent position within the LIC. Keep electronic version up to date. The Gantt chart placed within the LIC will become a focal point for prototype updates, internal conversation about project progression. (October)
--Encourage and value discussion and differences (there will be many)
--Recognize and reward progress
■ Review and analyze committee reports to refine target audiences and assign champions to ensure their ongoing representation. Communicate key decisions to entire staff regarding daily content placement that will address. (November)
--Baby Boomers
--Men Over 35
--Long-term readers who have recently canceled subscriptions (time, political persuasion, cost, content, etc)
■ Consider and implement planned obsolescence of time-consuming or outmoded features, products or organizational components. (December)
■ Create and promote a mechanism (perhaps beginning online) aimed at readers to advise them, tap into their impressions and begin allowing them to take part in the process of creating a new version of The Times. (December)
■ Develop staffing strategy that will address a 20 percent increase in page production. (December)
SECTION EDITORS (Velda Hunter, Scott Ferrell, Kathie Rowell Craig Durrett)
■ Contribute to the Content Analysis Team by prioritizing types of stories, features, project work. (October)
■ Prepare and deliver complete budgets that consider the needs of designers. (October)
■ Identify employees with the capabilities, desire and need to deliver increased productivity. (October)
■ Plan and work in advance. (October)
■ Submit a game plan to Top Managers that prioritizes pages requiring “skilled design” vs. pagination. (November)
■ Contact syndicates and third-party providers. (December)
CONTENT ANALYSIS (Scott Anderson)
■ Create a vehicle that will both query and provide a wide and precise representative of readers’ views. (October)
■ Delivery weekly reports to Top Managers that outline progress and plans to approach key issues (October)
■ Based on findings and analysis, deliver to Top Managers as seven-page document that outlines visions for content for each day of the week. (November)
CONTENT DELIVERY (Jeff Benson)
■ Begin with a clean slate, sans rules related to presentation. (October)
--Determine new rules and clearly communicate their necessity.
■ Identify employees with the capabilities, desire and need to deliver increased productivity. (October)
■ Set realistic”mid-stream” deadlines and ensure adherence. (October)
■ Work with Advertising to establish plausible Advertising adjacencies and objectives throughout new product. (October)
■ Meet regularly to monitor progress and be highly visible as a mentor. (October)
■ Review with all designers the contents of committee reports from which content decisions will be made (November)
■ Work with Advertising to clarify ad measurements and edition planning procedures (November)
■ Submit to Top Managers a seven-page packaging vision document (for each day of the week), along with several individual page prototypes to showcase significant proposals. (November)
■ Fully develop two complete sets of prototypes based on information based on content information and LIC and Advertising decisions. (December)
CUSTOM PUBLISHING (Barbara Widner, Matt Whitehead)
■ Decide, in conjunction with Publisher and Editor, best format (broadsheet or tabloid) for Voices products. (November).
■ Prepare one complete set of prototypes that present new opportunities for reader-submitted news as the primary value of these products, with continued visual energy. (December)