Overview:

The Washington Post was having financial difficulties for a variety of different reasons such as rising levels of competition in the news market, lack of product innovation, rising subscription prices due to inflation, newspaper's failure to capitalize on the growth of digital advertising, the newspaper inability to keep up with the rapid pace of change in the news industry, and the inability to keep up with the level of news coverage and the speed that other digital sources were able to give.

My recommendation for the company is to

increase marketing efforts.

Project Scenario:

Purpose - you are designing a team that aims to increase the marketing efforts of Washington Post. Make it the ideal team for this purpose; build in innovation best practices and principles.

Audience - the design brief is primarily for the upper-level managers or executives who will commission your team. Write it as a pitch for them to authorize creating (and funding) your team's work.

Topics to cover -

1. Describe the team's purpose or "why." What is its goal, what innovation is it implementing or supporting? How would you define its success?
2. Describe the role innovation will play in this unit's ability to meet its mission and/or goals, and why innovation is essential.
3. Describe the ideal size of your team (how many members).
4. Describe the ideal profile of the leader of this team: what leadership qualities must they have? What skills and abilities would best help support innovation?
5. Describe the ideal profile(s) of team members. How will you ensure diversity? what skill sets do members need to have?
6. Describe how you will ensure the team maximizes innovation in its structure: who will be in charge? How will it meet? How will new ideas be surfaced, analyzed, evaluated, and chosen?
7. Describe at least two innovation techniques and/or frameworks you recommend for this unit.
8. Cite the sources you use.