As a journalist, certain words get the pulse racing: ‘exclusive’, ‘agenda-setting’, ‘cover story’, ‘award-winning’. This is what we live for.
Conversely, two words which can normally be guaranteed to make the average hack’s blood run cold are: ‘process review’.
But as Paul Bradley, chief content editor at the NFU told us in Tuesday’s webinar (sponsored by PCS), if you can simplify, streamline and standardise your processes, you greatly increase the amount of time you can spend on the exciting stuff.
The NFU recently embarked on a major process review alongside introducing new publishing systems, and the result has been a significant freeing up of time. We’re not talking about shaving a minute or two here and there, we’re talking about saving multiple workdays a month.
There are two good reasons why publishers should review the way they do things:
- Publishing’s siloed past: In the past (and for many, the present) every title had its own workflow. This was just about OK if people only ever worked on one title, but is totally impractical in today’s publishing world where journalists typically have to work across multiple titles. The NFU used to have eight flat planning systems; it now has one.
- Our messy evolution: As publishing has evolved to cope with the demands of multi-channel publishing, systems and processes designed for a simpler age, have had to adapt, often unplanned and on the fly. Ingenious workarounds, sticking plaster solutions and the occasional software bolt-on have kept the show on the road, just, but the reality is that these higgledy-piggledy systems are not fit for purpose and are riddled with unnecessary steps, duplicated tasks and countless other inefficiencies.
As a result of their process review, NFU is producing much more and much better content. And, significantly, said Paul, team morale has never been higher.
Now, that’s exciting.
