Managing a media company
As you would expect managing a company who’s products and services are 100% online is different from managing a traditional company. The challenges this type of company faces are from one perspective far fewer, there is no stock, there is no supply chain and there is no retailer. However from another point of view this type of 100% online product is so new that we have only had the last ten years to learn how to manage such a company, new pitfalls, traps, problems issues arrise all the time and there are not established methods for dealing with them.
Successful companies with this style of product are tending towards an “Executive, Management, Delivery” (EMD) style of management structure
Media company management structure
Note that I have not drawn the structure as a hierarchy, instead I have draw it as three equal groups, each group is delineated by its area of knowledge, skill and responsibility.
The Delivery
The delivery team is simply defined as everyone who has a hands on responsibility over the product, either creating graphics, code, or installing servers.
The Executive
This group is comprised of your CIO’s, CTO’s and CFO types, they sometimes appointed by the investors. They are often requited because of their reputation. It is this groups responsibility to secure investment, manage investors and control the public presentation of the buisness.
The Management
This could also be called the governance team. If the delivery group is engine then this group is the engine governer. It is their responsibility to understand the delivery at a meta level and ensure that it is working as whole and runnung smoothly. This group also has responcibility to orchestrate change.
In a well managed well run company each of these groups can operate in a fast, creative way without causing issues to appear in the other groups. This can be acheived by all the members of the company having a shared vision, and a shared understaning of the company culture.
Now lets look at each role.
Designer
The designer is responcible for the visual interface of the product, this could be somthing as simple as cutting out graphics for adverts or somthing as complex as desiging a menu. The designer must be skilled at artistic composition, layout typeofraphy and most importantly CSS.
Developer
The developer creates applications, and is master in the art of coding and delivering. A programmer programs and is concered with the form and function of the code, where as the developer is also skilled in actually shipping products to real users and unlike the programmer the Developer knows when to code and when not to code.
Tester
The tester is the quality barrier for the products that are created. A good tester is skilled in not only finding defects but also adjusting how the developers deliver products.
Integrator / Operator
This role is of essential importance and is often overlooked. Sometimes computers go wrong. When they do its the Operators that fix them. A good operator or integrator fixes a problem, and changes the procedures that caused the problem.
Producer
This is a much underestimated role. The producer’s responsibility is to the product as a whole, and the producer must have a certian degree of autonomy to create and modify the product according to their vision. The producer will be the person who sets up content deals, advertising deals they will also sometimes create the high level UI and will implement the information architecture.
Moderator
The moderator will manage the content of the site in accordance with the content guidelines. They will check comments, pages, videos, pictures and messages to ensure that the space is either “on brand” within decency guidelines or even just exciting enough.
Community Manager
Where the moderator is the products policeman this role is the products Judiciary. The community manager will create the guidelines, monitor the community demographic and either try and attract or deter certain types of contributor.
Creative Director
This role is the top most point of artistic point of escalation. The creative director will be responsible for ensuring that the design team are fresh, are managing their work load well and providing either consistency or innovation when and when its needed.
Project or Program Manager
The project manager is in charge of both predicting the delivery time scales and ensuring that they are met. Their tools are the methodologies and processes that are found inside the business. The most important skill in this job is ensuring that the delivery group as a whole is operating at the highest level of acceptable risk.
Senior Developer or Development manager
This role is to do two things, 1)deliver better products i.e. increase quality of the code 2)deliver features faster i.e. ship products faster. The role involves helping people solve problems getting stuck in with the code, but at the same time helping them to grow. It involves managing a team but also working out how to maintain moral and enthusiasm.
Architect
This is an extremely difficult role to do well. As the architect you are the guardian of the vision, and the evangelist of new dreams, Jack Lang (an old college, and mentor) describes this role as Pilot. The architect is simply put the Arch-technician. This persons responsibility is to be the ultimate escalation point for issues and designer of new features.
For a description of the CEO – Cheif Executive Officer, CTO – Cheif Technical Officer, CFO – Cheif Finicial Officer, COO – Chief Operating Officer, VP Marketing and VP Sales roles, I suggest that you watch Jack Langs excellent video.Jack recommends that I should also credit Fred Brooks who used the term in “The Mythical Man Month” (this is on my wish list … Claire if you are reading this it would make a great present 
), and he was quoting Harlan Mills.
