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📱 What product teams do and why news organizations need them

When you think of a "product," you might imagine a household item or a gift that you purchased at the store. Many people don't realize the news media offer "products," but they actually do.

The website, app, TV networks, podcasts — even newsletters like this one — are all CNN products. Yes, there are reporters, writers and editors who craft the content you read or watch. But product teams are the people who work behind the scenes on the products that deliver that content.

It's a fascinating and not very well understood part of the news media business — even by many people who work in the industry. We recently reached out to CNN product manager Upasna Gautam and asked her to help explain. Here's what she told us:

CNN product manager Upasna Gautam leads a meeting about updates to the digital news publishing system.

What is the Product team at CNN Digital and what does it do?

The CNN Product team sits at the intersection of business, technology and journalism. Our jobs as product managers is to identify and solve the most impactful problems for our readers and journalists. CNN has several different digital products: the CNN app that you use on your mobile phone, podcasts, newsletters and videos and more.

Product managers like myself are responsible for shaping these products as well as building and successfully delivering them within the allocated budget and time. We are obsessed with making our users' and journalists' lives easier by deeply understanding their pain points and needs.

We work closely with our engineering and product design partners to build these impactful solutions and deliver them to our journalists and readers.

Can you explain what your role is?

My job as a product manager for CNN's core programming team is certainly unique in the realm of product manager jobs. I am a "platform PM," which means my customers are CNN's journalists. My product is our content management system (CMS), which is the tool that CNN Digital uses to publish all of its online articles and videos as well as make sure that content appears on CNN's website and app.

My main responsibility has been to build a faster and more flexible platform for our journalists so they can do their jobs more efficiently. Building this product started with taking time to deeply understand our journalists' pain points and problems within the current CMS so that we could prioritize solving the most important problems in our new system.

I made it my top priority to build a strong partnership with our editorial programming team so that we could build this new system together and so they felt like they had an equal hand in the product development process. It was certainly a marathon and not a sprint!

What is the most surprising thing that people don't understand about a product team at a digital media company?

Two things here. One, a lot of people get product and project managers confused. To put simply, the role of Product is the upfront legwork — also known as "product discovery" — to make sure the right problems are being solved and the solution being built is viable. Project managers focus on the back end of the lifecycle — as known as "project delivery" — to make sure the solutions are executed.

Second, there is a misconception that product managers are the "boss" or a "mini-CEO." The reality is that PMs don't have formal authority over any team and no one is obligated to do what we say. A great PM earns the respect of various teams and, even without actual authority, is able to extract the best out of everyone as she can help others see the bigger picture. A great PM also knows their limits and doesn't step on toes; they shine the light of success on their teammates while taking the hit of failures. PMs are more like team captains.

How did you get started in your career?

I have been working in the technology industry for the last 14 years (in data and search architecture roles), and I got to a point in my career where I was content but bored. Luckily at that time, fortune struck and one of my former colleagues (who is CNN's vice president of product) reached out and asked if I would be interested in a product management career on his team at CNN. I was shocked but also excited by the opportunity.

I took the job, and he has been my boss and mentor ever since! When I asked why he took such a big chance on me, he simply said: "Because you know how to build relationships. That's the part most PMs fail to grasp. The technical part will be easy for you to pick up. But building relationships is the most challenging and important part."

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📢 before you go

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