How to Choose Planning Tools that Solve Workflow Inefficiencies

• Shannan Bowen
• Leadership & People Management
• Date: 14/02/2023

This guide explores common publication workflow challenges faced by publishers and how they choose and manage content planning tools.

INTRODUCTION

Story budgeting systems and other workflow planning tools keep newsrooms productive, aligned and working efficiently. But despite the universal need for such tools, there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach for planning tools and methods. In this guide, we'll look at how three newsrooms approached three key challenges to their planning predicaments: determining whether to buy or build; deciding on one tool or many; and getting newsroom buy-in. 

News Catalyst¹ surveyed nineteen local, regional, national and international organizations about their content production workflows and tools. The research revealed patterns in workflows among the participating publishers, as well as insights about challenges and opportunities to improve steps in the process. In surveys and interviews, publishers also told News Catalyst about the tools and systems they use for production workflow and communication. Overall, there was consensus that these tools and systems are necessary to manage and track the completion of work by team members and to ensure everyone knows the plans for digital and print publications. Most newsroom leaders also agreed that without some type of content planning or communication tool, their teams would miss deadlines, risk duplication of work and lack quality control in editing and preparing stories for publication.

News Catalyst’s research found that there was not one primary tool or method used by the majority of publications who responded to the survey. From implementing a system of Google Docs to developing custom tools, newsrooms approached story budgeting decisions based on use cases and resources that are specific to their organizations.

IN PRACTICE

The Seattle Times, LA Times and WAMU/DCist were each interviewed about the tools and approaches they implemented to solve newsroom communication challenges. Their needs were similar to other newsrooms participating in News Catalyst’s research: streamlining communication, finding one tool or system of tools to use for planning, and preventing duplication or missed steps in the workflow process. Their decisions to choose a licensed tool or build their own came down to what fits best for their individual newsroom’s goals, structures and resources. 

Each of the organizations we interviewed identified three main challenges as they considered their planning needs:

• Determining Build vs. Buy: Is it more feasible to purchase a tool from a vendor than build one from scratch? Does the newsroom need something customized that an off-the-shelf tool won’t provide? 
• One Comprehensive Tool or Several Working Together: Is there one tool that will accomplish a set of use cases, or does your newsroom need to integrate several tools to accomplish your goals?
• Getting Buy-In: How will you get everyone on board with a tool or set of tools? Who ensures adoption and use?
  

Determining Build vs. Buy

One major decision newsrooms make is whether to build or buy their own budget and planning tools. Though there are advantages to either option, the best approach typically depends on the newsroom’s capacity to implement and maintain their own tools, and the level of complexity needed within a tool or system of tools. A free, web-based tool like Google Docs could be enough to manage a list of stories and dates for a small newsroom with one digital-only product. On the other hand, a large newsroom with multiple desks and both print and digital editions might need a tool that integrates with their CMS and includes more advanced features for tracking the flow of content across multiple teams.

The custom-built path was the right one for The Seattle Times to implement as the newsroom transitioned to a digital-first publishing structure, said assistant managing editor Danny Gawlowski. 

“We decided that the needs of our newsroom were not fully met by existing tools and that it would take less time to develop a budget tool than to modify existing tools for our needs,” he said. “This was such a critical component of our transition to a digital-first publishing structure that it was worth the development time.”

Their custom tool, called Cedar, helps the newsroom track publishing plans, promotions and other elements like text, graphics, photos and videos for each story. Though the initial development was resource-intensive, new features are now relatively easy to add, Gawlowski said.

Building and maintaining a tool isn’t always feasible for some newsrooms, particularly those that are smaller in size or those that do not have development teams or resources in-house. WAMU, a public radio station serving the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region, decided to exclusively use the cloud-based platform Airtable to plan, update and track stories published for both WAMU and its online publishing platform, DCist. The move to Airtable specifically helped solve several operational challenges as the organization combined newsrooms for WAMU and DCist. That meant moving away from a “really ungainly Google Sheet system,” said Mary Tyler March, the organization’s former strategic planning editor.

March said Airtable was chosen for a number of reasons, including its ability to centralize all of their stories and resources on one tool that could be customized and used by anyone in the newly combined newsroom and in the organization more broadly. DCist had previously used Airtable under the leadership of then-Editor in Chief Rachel Sadon, before the tool was introduced to the wider newsroom. Additional features in Airtable, such as surveys and calendar views, are perks as well.

“For us, Airtable has dramatically improved our ability to organize and stay on top of story planning, from our daily editorial schedule, to projects and series coverage across multiple publishing platforms. It’s also improved cross-functional communication in our organization,” March said.

Though Airtable is working effectively for the teams in the WAMU/DCist newsroom, some wish-list items aren’t within reach right now. “We have an automated nightly email that sends our web publishing rundown from that day to the news staff and various stakeholders across the organization, but no CMS or Slack integrations,” March said. “We don’t have the resources to ideate on what sorts of integrations might be feasible or to implement them into our workflow.”

As product managers and other team members vet the build vs. buy decision, common factors to weigh include:

• Cost: What does the tool cost initially and annually? Remember that the cost doesn’t just include the price of the tool itself. You’ll need to factor in costs of staff time for maintaining the tool and also any upfront implementation costs.
• Implementation: What resources are needed to implement the tool for your newsroom? Will it be as simple as creating shared Google Doc permissions and a guide for how to use the document? Or, will you need internal development resources to integrate a budget tool with your content management system? When comparing vendors, you can assign an estimate of the size of the work expected to launch the tool.
• Training and Adoption: How difficult will it be to get everyone on board with using the specific tool?
• Maintenance: Who will maintain your tool once you have it implemented? Do you have internal staff who can handle issues, fix features if they break, or add features that are desired?
  

One Comprehensive Tool or Several Working Together

Before building and implementing Cedar, The Seattle Times newsroom used a combination of different tools: a print content management system to track stories, Google Docs and even Trello boards. The issue was that different newsroom departments used different tools for managing and tracking story assignments, resulting in a lack of transparency and alignment across the teams. Cedar is now the one place where all story planning happens, and the tool also integrates with the newsroom’s web CMS, WordPress, and can send stories to the print CMS, Methode. That integration—a primary need expressed by the newsroom—was one reason adoption of Cedar happened so quickly, Gawlowski said.

Some newsrooms, on the other hand, said the one-tool approach is becoming less and less appealing to product teams that want more flexibility in building and managing tools. For instance, a tool that includes multiple features might be stronger in one area than another, and product teams might want the flexibility to use just one of the tool’s features while choosing another tool for other needs. For some newsrooms, a tool that handles story budgeting for both print and digital publications, as well as communication (similar to features in a tool like Slack) could be preferable to maintaining multiple tools. For others, tools that integrate with existing platforms are preferred to help streamline communication and provide more alignment among teams that need insight into what others are working on.

The Los Angeles Times, for example, found that using multiple tools led to different editorial desks using different story budgeting methods and lacking insight into which team was working on which story. This sometimes led to duplication of stories or projects and missed opportunities to plan for digital engagement, said Brittany Hite, the newsroom’s former director of news tools and project management.

“If [audience teams] aren’t finding out about those stories until they’re published, they don’t have the opportunity to plan and optimize that coverage,” she said. Also, the newsroom’s leadership desired a “bird’s eye view” of all that the newsroom’s various teams were working on.

Hite said the solution was to create a custom budget tool within the newsroom’s content management system, Graphene. Still, moving teams away from their favorite tools—a mixture of Google Docs and Airtable systems—revealed a few issues. First, there was some internal resistance to new technology. The flexibility that was found in Google Docs, for example, was something reporters missed. Also, teams in the LA Times newsroom needed to be sure that their new CMS tool could handle planning for the print publication in addition to digital workflow needs.

Ultimately, the automation of information about stories shared between the CMS and the budget tool was a feature that won teams over to its use. Instead of manually typing information into a Google Doc budget system, information from a story shell created in the CMS automatically generates an assignment on the story budget, Hite explained. Integrating Slack into the CMS budget tool also helped streamline communication among different teams within the newsroom. The newsroom now uses Slack bots that assign daily tasks or provide updates. For example, a reporter can write a note within the CMS to alert the copy desk that a story is ready, and that note will show up in a Slack channel that the team monitors. 

Still, like many newsrooms that have developed their own internal tools, the LA Times must add the ongoing task of maintaining the budget tool to its own development workflows. “We have ownership of it and know things are only going to change if we want it to,” Hite said.

The decision on which path—one tool that does it all, or multiple tools working together—could be made by examining a few factors:

• Cost: As noted previously, the cost factor is an important one when deciding which tool to use for story planning and newsroom communication. If you’re deciding whether to use a tool that does it all vs. packaging together multiple tools, you’ll want to run the costs to see where you might save money.
• Capacity for managing multiple systems: If you use, say, Slack for newsroom communication and Trello for managing your content production plans and another tool for requests to visual team members, does your newsroom have the staff and processes to manage using all three tools?
• Ease of experimentation: Can you try out one tool with enough flexibility in your plan (e.g. some tools offer monthly payments rather than requiring a locked-in contract)?
• Accessibility and security of tools: Journalists are often communicating about story updates from outside the newsroom, and with more remote work happening than ever, it’s important for tools to be able to work outside the newsroom. With either approach—using one tool that does it all or multiple tools that work together—choosing tools that are both secure yet accessible outside the newsroom are important.
  

Getting Buy-In

One hurdle expressed by many participants of News Catalyst’s research was getting everyone in the newsroom on board with using a new tool or process. Such was the case for the LA Times, but as Hite explained, showcasing the benefits of the tool helped increase adoption.

Other times, the challenge is consistency. For The Seattle Times newsroom, Gawlowski said it took more time than expected to encourage staff members to fill out all of the required fields in Cedar, their custom budget planning tool. If they don’t, stories won’t be tracked properly, defeating the purpose of the shared tool.

And the challenge of consistency of use isn’t unique to custom-built tools. “Airtable is only useful if the people responsible for updating statuses, adding stories, and tracking deadlines are doing those things consistently,” March said.

Creating a newsroom training and adoption plan before you implement your tool can help ensure adoption and continued use. Here are a few best practices for training and adoption that surfaced in News Catalyst’s research:

• Involve people from all teams in the vendor vetting process. Conduct your own internal audience research by getting input on needs from your newsroom’s reporters, assignment editors, photographers, designers, social media editors and anyone else who has a role in planning and producing content. In addition to understanding their needs for tools and processes, include them in the process of selecting a tool by providing updates and being transparent about the criteria you’re using for selection.
• Test a tool with a small group of people first: Rolling out a new tool or system for a large newsroom all at once can be difficult to manage. Start with a test group so that you can learn about struggles or common questions and adapt your training plan to address those areas for other teams.
• Get buy-in from leadership: Product managers working in newsrooms know they often have to lead with influence when they don’t necessarily have authority. Getting buy-in from leaders in the newsroom for your training plan can ensure that you have the authority for ensuring teams are trained and using the tools by a specific date.
• Assign newsroom ambassadors: Find early adopters or people who are excited about the tools and turn them into training leads or ambassadors. They can help answer questions and also lead the adoption of new tools for specific teams.
• Have clear timelines and deadlines: Create a project plan detailing when you’ll be training teams on new tools and processes, and include deadlines for switching from one tool to another. We know journalists often are familiar with deadlines, so providing a date for working toward training and implementation will be familiar in a newsroom.

Footnotes

1. News Catalyst: News Catalyst Workflow Survey, 2021
   

TERMS

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

Cross-functional team: A group of people from across departments with different functional expertises who collaborate from the beginning of a product’s lifecycle to meet a shared goal. Cross-functional teams break down traditional silos and increase the chance of success by bringing various expert perspectives together from the beginning.

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

Stakeholder: The people with interest in or who may be affected by a product’s outcome. Stakeholders may be internal and cross-departmental (e.g. editorial, marketing, development, etc.), and external (e.g. product audience/user base).

RELATED READINGS/RESOURCES

Newsrooms use a range of planning and communication tools, from Google Docs to custom-built solutions. This table includes details about some of the most popular options that surfaced in News Catalyst’s survey.

About the author

Shannan Bowen is a product and audience strategist with background leading strategies for local news, subscription revenue and audience engagement.