9 Lean Lessons from The New York Times - Challenges, Successes and Learnings from bringing a modern approach to product development at the iconic American institution.

1. 9 Lean Lessons
at The New York Times

2. The Pilot
3 opportunities · 6 weeks · 3 teams

3. Challenges, Successes and Learnings
brought to you by the number “3” and the letter “C”.
(with apologies to the Children’s Television Network.)

4. Capacity
Make sure your participants have dedicated time available.

5. Collocation
Project rooms don’t cut it. Get teams constantly together,
even if you need to rent a room!

6. Capability gap
Teams may not have perfect skills or tools, so encourage
them to get creative. There’s always some way to test.

7. Champions
Participants who “get it” go out and make things happen, and
can be your strongest cheering squad.

8. Collaboration
Cross-functional members working towards the same goals
from the beginning? Awesome.

9. Customer focus
Getting out of the building reinforced for teams how ideas
need to be (and can be) validated quickly.

10. Conditions
Pilot programs help identify prerequsites that will ease
adoption for existing teams.

11. Confirmation
Real-world opportunities demonstrate to execs and teams
alike that yes, it can work here.

12. Conventions
Running through discovery sessions several times enable us
to share learnings, processes and tools with other teams.

13. Thank you!
Al Ming
al.ming@nytimes.com
linkedin.com/in/alming