How small changes and user focus can drive big impact in newsrooms
Everything starts from a good story.
It’s the aftermath of World War II. Toyoda, later to become Toyota as a result of internal competition for a new logo, was struggling to compete with larger American automotive manufacturers. Facing a lack of resources and a pressing need to innovate, Taiichi Ohno, a then Toyoda engineer, sought to create a more efficient production system. He was sent on a study visit to the USA where he drew inspiration from the American automotive industry’s way of working as well as the grocery store approach to stocking and selling — how they managed inventory and replenished items “just in time” for customer needs.
Upon return from the U.S. Ohno and his team devised what would later be known as the Toyota Production System, emphasising eliminating waste, improving workflow, and focusing on customer needs. But even beyond the needs of the customers, the approach itself relied on the improvement input coming from those closest to the production process. Every employee of the company had a chance to be engaged in its development.
One day, while observing the assembly line, Ohno noticed a worker struggling to reach a tool. It was a small issue, but it illustrated a larger point: even minor inefficiencies could hinder productivity. Rather than dismissing it as a minor concern, Ohno advocated for the worker’s input and made the necessary adjustments to ensure tools were easily accessible. This small change led to a significant reduction in assembly time, showcasing how lean methodology embraces continuous improvement through listening to employee feedback and acting swiftly on it.
No improvement is too small or too insignificant. The impact lies not just in how the change will affect productivity but in how discussing the improvement from all positions and roles will affect the engagement. And this is something noteworthy.
How things are made is an incredibly important component of what we offer to the end customer. Process as a part of the quality equation.
This is exactly what the team at The Guardian did in the 2010s when they decided that a full on transformation is needed if this media outlet wanted to keep its readership. This was done in response to declining print revenues and growing importance of digital media consumption. And that was 2010s. To stay in the market today, and stay relevant, media outlets need to face competition from a completely different breed: social media platforms have made it possible for individuals to create and put forward content that is not part of some big strategy or elaborate transformation effort. It is there: here and now capturing the needs and desires of the audience. And the audience is different now – digital natives who expect things to arrive into their palms almost real time. The response from media outlets to these changing dynamic realities could draw at least some inspiration from the lean approach to improvement and change.
So, what about lean philosophy makes it a great go-to approach when it comes to building organisational excellence and resilience? Here are a few most well known principles that served Toyota in the 1950s as well as The Guardian in 2010s.
The overall approach rests on several things, the most relevant here being reduction of waste and elimination of inefficiencies.
The lean approach to change and building operational effieciency requires close observation of key processes and a very strict definition of value: where it comes from, how it’s molded into the final product, and where it gets depleted in the process.
In other words, creating order in chaos until chaos sorts itself out into a process that perpetuates itself.
The approach itself allows for the cultivation of a culture of continuous improvement, involving all employees creating operational excellence that spans across all levels of production.
Granted, lean principles were developed as a response to low levels of competitiveness and innovation in the manufacturing sector which does not make all of its teachings relevant to other industries. However, over time, things took a high level trajectory from the operational floor level practices to what does look like the philosophy of lean and can be applied elsewhere. Here is a non-exhaustive list of practices that can be juxtaposed to standard operating procedures in media outlets, for example, no matter how big or small, to identify areas of operational improvements.
- User-Centric Design: this is arguably the most important aspect of lean
- In the transformation of operations in The Guardian, this was adopted as one of the first things: a user-first approach, focusing on understanding the needs and preferences of readers. Yes, it seems obvious that this should be done but the processes built around this idea often abound with redundant practices. To do it right, the aim is to conduct user research to gather insights about reader behavior, preferences, and pain points, allowing the organisation to tailor content and features accordingly. Do not talk just to those who read you, investigate those who do not to understand what keeps them away.
- Agile Workflows:
- No matter how neat our organisational charts may look, most of our actual realities boil down to a lot of information flowing back and forth between different silos. This costs time, and consequently money. Lean calls for more flexibility, rapid iterations and adaptability on a task as well as strategic levels. Your old team structure simply won’t cut it any more. Lean requires cross-functional teams to be formed, enabling faster decision-making and collaboration among journalists, editors, and developers. This can help streamline content production and delivery, ensuring timely coverage of current events.
- Continuous Improvement:
- The Guardian adopted a culture of continuous improvement by regularly reviewing processes and outcomes. They used analytics and feedback to measure the effectiveness of content and reader engagement, making data-driven adjustments to improve overall performance. And this needs to stay as part of operational realities. No, there is no end to improvements.
- Experimentation and Innovation:
- Lean principles encourage experimentation, and The Guardian embraced this by launching various pilot projects and innovative formats, like interactive graphics and multimedia storytelling. This experimentation allowed them to discover new ways to engage readers and differentiate themselves in a crowded market.
- Elimination of Waste:
- By analysing internal workflows, you can identify and eliminate wasteful practices that hinder efficiency. For example, in the case of the media industry, many editorial processes can be heavy and contain a lot of redundancies. By actually drawing this, or any other process, step by step and identifying different actors involved in value creation, you can eliminate waste and ensure that resources are allocated more effectively. As a lean tool, this is called value stream mapping. It is highly effective to actually visualise different steps, however small or insignificant they may appear, in, for example, the content creation process. If you do that you may end up with something like this:
- Story Ideation: Journalists pitch story ideas during morning editorial meetings.
- Assignment: The editor assigns stories to journalists.
- Research and Writing: Journalists research and write the articles.
- Editing: Articles undergo editing for clarity, accuracy, and style.
- Layout and Design: The design team formats the article for online publication, ensuring it fits the website’s style.
- Publishing: The article is published on the website.
- Promotion: Social media and newsletters promote the article to attract readers.
- Feedback Analysis: Analytics are reviewed to gauge reader engagement and feedback.
Next thing you do is try and understand how much time it takes to complete each step and whether there is some unnecessary wait period in between the steps. Identify delays. Identify reasons for delays. Look for bottlenecks. Actively seek improvements every step of the way. Maybe the team discovers that there is some delays in the way editing process is being done. To speed things up, you may introduce two-tier editing practices where quick reviews are completely initially to provide feedback as soon as possible.
Or you may discover that not all stakeholders have timely information on angels or progress of the story. You may wish to develop a clear protocol around assignments brief so that everyone interested is informed in a timely manner.
What is to be expected from this approach? Definitely, significantly improved reader engagement. The focus on user-centric design and content delivery breeds results in terms of engagement and loyalty. If all of this is done right, you can expect increased digital revenue. Finally, internally, increased editorial capacities and new ways of working allows for more responsive and flexible practices.
Let’s go back to the story one more time. Yes, it was introduced as part of process efficiency enhancing policies in manufacturing but the lean approach to operational excellence has much to offer. The challenge is to understand that this change must come through people and not to them: mindset that allows for experimentation and learning from feedback loops is what helps companies make it or break it.
The lean methodology is about making small, continuous changes that lead to significant improvements over time—a valuable lesson for media professionals looking to enhance their own operations.
Author: Samira Nuhanović
