3. Mobilising innovation for blue chips and startups. Creating
high-performing teams
across Audience, Product and Experience.
Adopting Agile enterprise-wide and establishing high scale
innovative digital platforms.
Director Digital Product and Technology
& Startup AdvisorWill Everitt
18. • Consumer trends on mobile are increasing.
• People are time-poor and want to consume content on
the go.
• A mobile-first strategy with focus on unique value
propositions is key to success.
• Premium, trusted and brand safe environments with
best-in-class digital experiences increase engagement.
• With increased traffic from search and social, there is a
need to make Article the new homepage.
Mobile-first
19. • Video is a key enabler to capitalise on today's market
trends.
• User expectations of content and the richness of the
experience it provides have grown exponentially.
• The video advertising spend growth rate is at, and
continues to grow at, double digit figures.
• The dollars are there - so we needed to provide
inventory to capitalise on this demand.
Video
20. • The audience is at the heart of everything we do.
• Maximising the value of our audience improves
monetisation.
• Develop concepts targeted at audience growth among
high value consumers.
• Data is the key asset. Finding it, analysing it,
consolidating it and monetising it is paramount.
• Get data in one place and create services to
dynamically expose information.
Data-driven
21. • Next, we targeted the huge appetite for podcasts matching
the exponential growth in smart speakers.
• We are competing in the ‘attention age’ and audio is a new
way for users to engage with content.
• We experimented in creating a suite of podcasts to grow a
new revenue stream, increase brand loyalty and attract
new users.
• Through innovative collaborations, we were a launch
partner with the Google Home Hub and held an innovation
day with Amazon on Alexa.
• We now focus on Voice SEO as the next frontier for where
to win audience.
Audio
22. A.I. & Machine Learning
• With online content consumption constantly growing, it’s
crucial that we take advantage of new technologies to
achieve maximum growth.
• Harnessing ML yields tremendous value such as, engaging
users, increasing profits and making content production
more efficient.
• As an innovation partner, Amazon has a suite of A.I services
to easily integrate with our new tech stack.
• Scenarios include content recommendations, user data for
personalised experiences, robot journalism and reducing
labour and inefficient operations.
23. • Demand was high from luxury and premium
clients to provide a point of difference in the
market.
• Providing utility beyond content was critical to
stand out from the crowd.
• We needed to focus on creating a visually striking
and engaging toolset and the ability to trial,
review and amplify product.
• We ideated a range of solutions across the
network including but not limited to engaging
shoppable widgets, product carousels and
immersive experiences.
Beyond content
28. • Focus on ‘deliver often and early’.
• Defines how to prioritise, start, engage, deliver and
measure.
• Lite stage-gate framework with iterative approach
based on Scrum and Lean Startup principles.
• Full transparency with clear delivery ownership.
Product
Lifecycle
29. • Forum of uber product owners and stakeholders to:
– Review product strategy and roadmap
– What are we currently working on? What is
ahead of us?
– Presentation of any conflicting priorities
– Final decision of prioritisation
• Enables a joined-up approach to decision making.
Product
Council
30. • Clear and prioritised product roadmap aligned to
strategy.
• Quarter-based plans and priorities with high level FY
roadmap.
• Provides transparency on future plans and what is
being worked on / delivered.
• Defined process for roadmap and funding approval.Product
Roadmaps
31. • Innovation framework focused on:
– New ideas and taking risks
– New products through to market launch –
quickly / iteratively
• Innovation activities - ‘hackathons’, lightning talks,
department ideation, collaborative meetups and
innovation partnerships.
• User-driven innovation - experimentation sessions,
consumer feedback, research & prototype testing.
Product
Innovation
32. Open Inspect Adapt
Transparency, openness
and shared understanding
of team goals.
Review everything and
continuously look for
improvement.
Welcome change and
course correct at any time
if it means we are building
better product.
33. • Enhance Beta / MVP
• Production strength
software
• Measure key KPI’s
• Business case
• Create the vision
• Project brief
completed
• Waiting for
prioritisation
• Small team
• Build out Beta backlog
• Workshops, paper,
prototypes and code
• Build business case
• Micro team
• Just enough to
understand PoC
• Workshops
• Risk based approach
• A set of hypothesis
• Minimum set of
features
• Deliver Beta / MVP
• Working software
• Valuable business
case
Inception Proof of Concept ScaleConcept Beta
Product lifecycle
38. ● Owns product lifecycle from
inception to market launch
● Sizing, planning and tracking
● Story definition
● Delivery to expectation
Delivery
● Optimises engineering
process
● Accurate sizing and standard
process
● Knowledge sharing, cross
team collaboration and
technical innovation
● Adoption of test automation
● Solution architecture
Engineering
Engineer
Product
● Develop product roadmap
and quarterly plans
● Engage with stakeholder
groups to gain requirements
● Gatekeeper for all product
requirements. Prioritises
based on ROI
● Delivery of best practice UX
and visual design
● Data driven decision making
Product Owner
UX Designer
Tech Lead
Iteration Manager / BA
40. Talent
Foster, test and learn.
Support ‘failing is learning’.
Encourage decision making.
Test &
Learn
Onboard and develop ‘doers’.
Smart and passionate people, highly
skilled and good culture fit.
45. Flexible Agile RealFast
• Utilise real life user
data to drive product
development.
• Analytics
requirements must be
designed into every
system component.
• Ensure digital content
on platforms where
possible is channel
agnostic.
• Greater ability to
adapt to changing
landscape
• Fast, frequent
delivery.
• Automate everything
and enable
continuous delivery.
• Embrace cloud-based
infrastructure and
open-source
technologies to
optimise spend.
• Introduce robust cost
and security review
processes as part of
our devops practices.
• Maintainable, high
performance
software.
• Adopt an iterative
approach.
• Speed to market and
early discover is
paramount.
• Innovate and take
risks.
• Future proof to
provide a solid,
reusable foundation
for cost effective
delivery of new and
emerging audience
facing services
• Build secure, scalable,
and standards-based
RESTful APIs.
• APIs support easy
entry to new delivery
channels.
• Leverage a shared set
of core capabilities
and data.
• Design loosely
coupled replaceable
technology
components to
minimise vendor lock
in.
Simple
• Focus on simple
systems to build, use,
maintain and
integrate.
• Highly responsive and
engaging user
experiences across all
platforms.
• Leveraging modern
frameworks and
native mobile SDKs.
• Common Platforms
for all capabilities -
deliver core and
standard platforms,
then innovate on
them.
Technology strategy & goals
47. Product
Process
People
Technology
We released a strong digital product range with highly
engaging user experience
We have clear roadmaps which everyone signed up to
with regular innovations days
We created a high performing team that drives agile
adoption
We established a scalable and high quality platform
with speed to market
