An inside look at how CNN builds product | Upasna Gautam
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky
5 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2023
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Upasna Gautam is a product manager at CNN Digital, where she works closely with editorial staff and journalists to build their internal content management system. She is also a longtime meditation coach and a board member of the News Product Alliance. In today’s episode, we delve into how product teams are structured and operate at CNN, how CNN uses OKRs and roadmaps, and the unique challenges and opportunities in designing a digital product for journalists. Upasna also shares a story about her team’s product saving the day during the 2020 elections and gives listeners a free mini lesson on meditation.
Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/an-inside-look-at-how-cnn-builds-product-upasna-gautam/#transcript
Where to find Upasna Gautam:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/UpasnaGautam
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/upasnagautam/
• Website: https://linktr.ee/upasnagautam
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
Referenced:
• Insight Timer: https://insighttimer.com/
• News Product Alliance: https://newsproduct.org/
• Mindfulness in Plain English: https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-English-Bhante-Henepola-Gunaratana/dp/0861719069
• How to Win Friends & Influence People: https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034/
• The New Product Development Game: https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game
• The Mandalorian on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/series/the-mandalorian/3jLIGMDYINqD
• Ted Lasso on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/ted-lasso/umc.cmc.vtoh0mn0xn7t3c643xqonfzy
• Everything Everywhere All at Once on Showtime: https://www.sho.com/titles/3493875/everything-everywhere-all-at-once
• Andor on Disney+: https://disneyplusoriginals.disney.com/show/andor
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Upasna’s background
(03:13) How Upasna’s meditation background helps her thrive in the chaotic world of product at CNN
(08:55) How PMs at CNN build in buffer time and create backup plans when breaking news hits
(10:26) How the product team works with editorial staff and journalists at CNN
(15:22) The product org structure at CNN Digital
(19:02) OKRs at CNN
(20:10) How CNN’s product teams do long-term planning
(21:37) Why Upasna involves the tech lead in all product discovery/product review meetings
(23:51) How to boost morale with remote teams
(27:39) Balancing maintenance with building new stuff
(29:21) The time CNN.com went down in 2020 and the new platform saved the day
(31:21) How the product team rehearses breaking news
(34:22) The superpowers Upasna and her team have cultivated
(35:50) Why meditation and honing your communication skills help you excel as a PM
(42:01) How to get started on the path of meditation
(44:39) The work News Product Alliance is doing and how to get involved
(51:54) Lightning round
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It happens all the time, right? That is the nature of breaking news. I mean you have to be ready to |
| 0:07.1 | pivot at the drop of a hat. I had a big working session planned with my users to do research with them or do user |
| 0:13.9 | testing and breaking news breaks and it takes so much time and effort to |
| 0:19.0 | gather a team of editors across the globe to do a user testing session and when breaking news happens they have to prioritize that over everything right so like what do you do in that situation you can be frustrated's frustrating, but we always have to have the ability to, A pivot, of course, but also have backup and, you know, buffers in those types of scenarios. |
| 0:45.0 | Welcome to Lenny's podcast, |
| 0:47.0 | where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts |
| 0:50.0 | to learn from their hard-won experiences |
| 0:51.0 | building and growing today's most successful products. |
| 0:54.0 | Today my guest is Upasna Gauthem. |
| 0:56.6 | Upasna is a product manager at CNN, where she leads the team responsible for the content |
| 1:01.3 | management system that journalists use to write and publish their stories. |
| 1:05.0 | She's also in the front lines of elevating the discipline of product management within newsrooms through her work at the News Product Alliance. |
| 1:12.0 | She's also a long time meditation and mindfulness teacher, which |
| 1:15.3 | as we discuss ends up being pretty damn handy working at a place like CNN. We dig into how the product team operates within CNN, |
| 1:22.8 | how they collaborate with journalists, |
| 1:24.6 | for breaking news, dress rehearsals, |
| 1:26.6 | and also some simple tricks to build your own mindfulness |
| 1:29.3 | in your day-to-day work as a PM. |
| 1:31.2 | Enjoy this episode with Repostna Galtham after a short word from our |
| 1:35.3 | wonderful sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Amplitude. If you're |
| 1:41.1 | setting up your analytic stack but not using |
| 1:43.1 | amplitude, what are you doing? |
... |
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