The Latest: Trump v. CNN dismissed; NAJA apology; Media reparations; How to kick off a project

Robin Kwong, new formats editor at The Wall Street Journal, shares key elements that a project manager should have in place before launching a new project in a recent Q&A with Poynter.

They are:

"A clearly articulated core idea for your project
A set of goals for what you hope the project will accomplish
A sense of the scope of the project that arises from the core idea
'Green light' in the sense of commitment from core team members and no active objections from the veto-wielders
A clear mapping of the roles and responsibilities needed for the project team, and participation from the people to fill those roles
A rough sense of the to-dos and the key milestones in the project timeline"

For more tips, Kwong has a comprehensive guide, “Project Management for Newsrooms,” in partnership with the Association for Project Management.

“I make a distinction between mistakes and failures. I’m not anti-mistake because I’m a human being, and I make them, we all do. But a mistake is not the same thing as a failure. A failure is something that went wrong that we wish were otherwise. A mistake is a deviation from a known practice. Now, that could happen because of inattention, because of lack of training, because of exhaustion, you name it. But I think it’s helpful for leaders — and others for that matter — to talk about the reality that we will make mistakes because we’re human. The very best practice is not to never make a mistake. It’s to catch and correct them quickly , and then also to make that distinction between smart experiments in new territory that we also want to see more of because it’s the secret to future value creation. And we welcome those, too.”

-- Amy Edmondson, author and Harvard Business School professor, “It’s OK to fail, but you have to do it right”

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