Working with product managers across different Mediahuis entities for several years, we experience the many challenges they face first-hand. Maintaining highly engaged teams throughout the ever-changing product cycle is one of the most challenging.
At Mediahuis Belgium, we discovered one of the answers lies in the force of internal communication, which can be the driving factor in keeping the organisation motivated regarding product and technical development. This is vital role that internal communication plays in change management success and employee engagement, supported by Mediahuis case studies.
Communication as a change management tactic
A flexible mindset is crucial in the world of product management. Shifting priorities and evolving customer needs require constant adaptation. The success of change initiatives depends heavily on effective internal communication.
One key to success is communicating a change story, which helps employees understand where the organisation is headed, why it is changing, and why the changes are essential. A McKinsey & Company study on digital transformation success shows a successful transformation is more than three times more likely for organisations that follow this practice.
When Mediahuis found itself amid a trust crisis between the technology and business departments, we introduced a new quarterly product cycle at Mediahuis Belgium. This included regular internal product newsletters and quarterly information sessions, leading to solid team alignment and cross-department collaboration.
The information sessions and newsletters to various stakeholders keep our colleagues well-informed and give them a sense of ownership and pride in their work. This open communication approach significantly reduced resistance to change and quicker adaptation to new product strategies.
We also discovered the positive effect internal communication has on employee engagement and productivity.
When Gallup researchers analysed the differences in performance among business work units, the benefits of employee engagement in productivity (+18%) and profitability (+23%) among others were prominent.
“Companies constantly evolve, and they need new ideas all the time,” said Jim Harter, Ph.D., Gallup’s chief scientist of employee engagement and wellbeing, in the article. “Engaged employees are a lot closer to the best ideas. They think about the whole company and how they fit into it, and their ideas lead to better decisions.”
Mediahuis case studies
Information sessions
In its quarterly information session, the product director presents a review of the previous quarter to our tech colleagues with concrete business results and explains the scope for the next quarter with the business requirements and objectives.
Here’s a look at some examples:
In the previous quarter, the business and technology sectors worked together on a better video environment for our digital products. This wasn’t the most challenging work for our developers. Yet, the results were stunning: We doubled our video inventory in a couple of months. Showing a graph with that result in the presentation boosted the engagement of the tech teams.
In this and the next quarter, we will devote a lot of time to onboarding the new Mediahuis publishing platform. Onboarding should never be a goal, so we also explain the business benefits and the “why” behind it. For example, we will migrate to a new customer journey platform and authentication system. These enable us to have a more flexible paywall, amongst other benefits. The business need for this is very high as our company is mainly subscription-driven.
The product director then repeats this session, with some adaptations, to the business stakeholders. Here, the focus is on what has been delivered, why, and what the next quarter looks like. He also gives a sneak preview of what we see on the agenda in the near future, such as next year. Everybody is, of course, free to ask any questions.
Newsletters
We work with three-week sprint cycles. After every cycle, the product management team sends a newsletter to internal stakeholders. In this newsletter, the team mainly explains what will be in the upcoming app and Web releases. But it is also a moment to communicate about our business, tech people’s work, and how the long-term platform initiatives are doing.
As we were migrating to a new platform, we also launched a bi-weekly newsletter about that project. The frequency will probably increase as we approach the launch date. This fits in our ADKAR (awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement) change management approach.
This newsletter is particularly important in the first three phases. We constantly inform our stakeholders of the new platform’s progress and benefits.
The road to success
We learned first-hand that effective internal communication is an important vehicle that propels your team through the challenges of an ever-changing product cycle. By embracing best practices, such as change management tactics, product newsletters, and information and “town hall” sessions, longer-term benefits will arise.
The Mediahuis case studies show that the force of internal communication is undeniable. Remember, it’s not just about what you communicate but how you do it that makes all the difference in product management.
To sum up, these are the internal strategies we use:
Quarterly review of the previous quarter and outlook of the next one for our technology colleagues, based on the business objectives.
Quarterly review and outlook for the business stakeholders, explaining what is and will be delivered and what will not.
A newsletter released every three weeks with a product update.
Biweekly newsletter about our platform migration.
Biweekly multi-disciplinary product meeting.
This blogpost was written together with Sarah Faict from Buildr and was first published on the INMA-website.