What WSJ staffers learned by shadowing colleagues

Louise Story, the chief product and technology officer at The Wall Street Journal, writes about how her staff learned what others at the paper do by shadowing them for a day.

Story writes, “It wasn’t long before Round Two became a Must Do. Our team members saw us visiting other people’s meetings and asked to join in. So next, we invited all managers and leads within DXS to shadow one of us, or each other. Like the first time, I assigned us all roughly alphabetically (with some adjustment to avoid repeating pairings from Round One).

“This time around, I shadowed Krista Schmidt, and I was shadowed by Kevin Dubouis. Both Krista and Kevin are strategy editors at the Journal, helping us connect our audience insights, product development and community teams with reporters and editors throughout the newsroom. Krista works with our Markets team; Kevin works with our World team. One of the things you see when you shadow people is how different people prepare for meetings. Krista is fastidious in her preparation and organization. Watching her talk with a partner on the Markets team about a forthcoming project about guides, I knew it would be a success. (Four months later, it is! Here’s one of them.)”

Read more here.