By Jessica Weiss
An attractive, informative infographic
or other interactive product can be the satisfying end result of a digital
team's hard work. But former Guardian interactive designer Mariana
Santos says the process of getting there is just as important.
“For a team, it’s as much about the
trip as it is about arriving,” says Santos, an ICFJ Knight International Journalism Fellow. She is
the founder of Chicas Poderosas, a movement to train women to
participate in technology in newsrooms throughout Latin America.
Santos recently conducted a training
session on project management for interactive
digital narration teams, in Santiago, Chile. Santos talked with
IJNet about how to achieve great group dynamics and effective communication,
which she says helps overall quality in newsrooms. Here are her four key tips:
Communication is key
In journalism, Santos says, great
communication is paramount. To achieve that, a devoted and focused project
manager should know each and every detail of a project, and explain and
distribute tasks among all team members (developers, journalists and
designers). Each team member should fully understand what, when and how he or
she needs to deliver a task.
“Each person on the team should feel
‘part of it’, so that individual egos are replaced by the spirit of teamwork
where everyone is working on a common goal and every single person is part of
that path.”
Do away with hierarchies
The hallmark of a dysfunctional digital
journalism team, Santos says, is when an editor writes a story, then approaches
the designer for an infographic right before the story is ready to be
published. Even worse, she says, is sending an email to a developer who works
in administration in another building, requesting that an interactive is
created to follow a story. (She’s seen it too many times.)
“I truly believe we need to sit
side-by-side,” Santos says. “We are a family throughout the problem-solving
phase, working together as designers, developers and editors to find the best
way to tell the story.”
Also helpful, Santos says, is an open
work space with plenty of opportunities for “accidental run-ins.”
Reflection matters
The key to success and emotional
stability during the process, Santos says, “is to learn from mistakes.”
Especially in high-stress, deadline-driven environments, it’s important to slow
down and reflect.
“If there's something you didn’t like
that your colleague did, share -- either immediately or at the end of the
project -- so everybody can learn from the mistakes,” she says. “The reflection
phase after a project, where we share what worked and what didn’t, can only
bring transparency, trust and improvement for future projects and behaviors.”
Apply a lean startup mentality to
journalism
In interactive journalism, the workflow
is like that of a startup: “We need to fail fast to succeed soon. We need to be
agile. We need to have parallel workflows, even within a massive team structure
that needs to work in sync with lots of people and tasks.”
The lean methodology allows the entire team to know
where the project stands and who needs to do what by when, she explains.
Everyone has a clear picture of project development as well as their role in
the team and what’s expected. That creates feeling of comfort, which is very
important to minimizing stress.
“If a team is limited to the same approach
over and over again just because it’s safe, innovation will never take place.”
To learn more, visit Chicas
Poderosas.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user vancouverfilmschool under a Creative Commons
license.
Jessica Weiss is a Bogotá-based freelancer.
Source: Ijnet.org
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