Pearls of Wisdom from Savvy Project Managers
The Launch
Want to learn more about our work with collaboratives? Head here to read “Developing Journalism Collaborations for Local Impact: The Role of Collaborative Scaffolding and Solutions Journalism in Changing Local Media Ecosystems,” our research report presented by the Center for Cooperative Media!
The role of project manager has emerged in recent years as a key component in the organizational charts of journalistic outlets looking to navigate our media’s current challenging environment successfully.
While a project manager can represent an invaluable asset to an individual news operation, the role is absolutely pivotal for a collaboration, an arrangement that involves coordination among several news organizations and in many cases non-traditional partners such as libraries, academic institutions and research centers.
What often first comes to mind for newsroom leaders is to select an outstanding reporter for this position. But the skills set required to be an effective project manager involves much more than mastery of advanced reporting techniques. Ditto for editing competency.
These are important and should be included in any job description, but they are not the key.
So what is the quality or mix of qualities that make an effective project manager in a collaborative setting?
An effective project manager of a collaborative must be part coach, part cheerleader, a persuader and a mediator, a sympathetic ear and a relentless driver, a whiz at interpersonal relationships, and to top it all, possess strategic as well as operational capacities that must often be deployed simultaneously.
In a collaborative setting, the project manager is nobody’s boss and yet must get participants to meet deadlines and commitments. In a collaborative setting, the project manager must have the sensibility to push the group to experiment and be bold, and yet know when the time is or is not right for a new challenge. In a collaborative setting, the project manager must reconcile disparate perspectives to create team cohesion. In a collaborative setting, the project manager offers inspiration when the project is not advancing as smoothly as anticipated.
This two-part series collects the insights of project managers of solutions-focused news collaboratives that bubbled up during a recent meeting to share knowledge and best practices. The collaboratives, active throughout the United States, are part of the Local Media Project, a five-year initiative of the Solutions Journalism Network supported by the Knight Foundation and the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation.
Some of these leaders are veterans who have been overseeing collaboratives for two years or longer, while some are in earlier stages of their journey.
This first set of reflections focuses on advice for anyone planning to launch a multi-partner collaborative. Part Two will offer lessons for efforts already underway.
Melanie Plenda — Granite State News Collaborative:
“Meet people where they are. Find out what folks can contribute and help them realize the strengths they may not know they have.”
Many of our project managers expressed this sentiment or a similar one. We asked Melanie to elaborate.
She continues: “For some outlets, all they may be able to contribute is their own content, for others, they may only have time to participate in planning, but not execution, still others will make time to share, plan and co-create. All of those efforts, big or small, contribute to the success of the whole. Being able to assess what resources are available from the partners, putting it together and then finding the resources to fill in the gaps is a big part of being the project manager.”
Chris Rudisill — Charlotte Journalism Collaborative:
“Think about the assets of each partner at the beginning. Your strongest contributors may not necessarily be the most ‘resourced’ or largest outlets.”
Jo Ellen Kaiser — Solving Sacramento:
“Begin by answering these two questions: What’s the story that’s not being told? What’s the market need that can be filled?”
She continues: “We had discussions with publishers and editors about stories they knew were out there — that reporters and community members had asked for — but that they hadn’t had resources to cover. Honestly, we wanted to hold town halls and such to surface more potential stories but COVID. I think others have been much more innovative, like Chicago and Philly, in terms of figuring out the best stories for communities. When we got down to 3–4 possible big story ideas, we took an honest look at what might be more fundable.”
Plus a final piece of wisdom: “Keep an eye on the business aspect and understand the motivation for joining. Help them [the participants] think about the fact that it is not all about the money.”
Sam Cholke — Solving for Chicago:
“It’s helpful to have community engagement on the front end to ensure stories match priorities of the audience you’re trying to reach. It also helps with framing/approaching storytelling. [You] need to do it from the start and keep in touch along the way.”
Gene Sonn — Broke in Philly:
“Share expertise from within your group as a way of building trust. Try a Lunch and Learn to build personal connections.”
And, finally, a nugget of wisdom that comes up time and time again — particularly from more established managers. Again from Melanie Plenda:
“Start small!”