A new INMA report details the “seven steps” to successful product process.

“Products and features can be developed with both customers in mind and with respect for scarce internal resources,” according to the report.

It outlines the steps as: understand the mission; articulate the problem; define customer needs; validate the idea; create a prototype; test and iterate; and share results.

Lead author Jodie Hopperton says there is a process to ensure that products and features media companies are building are focused on the people they’re building them for.

“Through this framework, teams can create not only successful products, but also transparency from sharing goals and objectives, ideas, data, tests, and results,” she says. “Sharing well means that colleagues will see practical uses within their own areas and ask to be included in developments.”

Cross-department collaboration, the report says, should start happening more naturally. The seven-step process fuses work from a variety of sources, including interviews with more than 100 product executives from around the world.

“It is a time-tested structure that means news teams are building products in a smart way that invests resources when we have some certainty around outcomes,” says Hopperton, “and, importantly, it works to adapt culture to embrace change and try new things.”

Among the report’s insights and case studies are Gannett, the Financial Times, Yahoo News, Straits Times, The Scotsman, Newsday, Dagens Naeringsliv, Schibsted/Aftenposten, Thoughtworks and MediaNews Group.

“Seven Steps to a Successful Media Product Process” is available free to INMA members and for purchase by non-members at INMA.org.