Guardian News and Media (GNM) is at the forefront of the digital revolution. Its award winning network guardian.co.uk is the most popular news website in the UK. The company recognized that growing demands from users, advertisers and editorial staff were beginning to strain the capability of is technology. Partnering with ThoughtWorks, The Guardian developed a new platform, taking advantage of innovative technology and adopting new ways of working as part of the process.

1. Moving the News
Guardian News and Media (GNM) is at the forefront of the digital
revolution. Its award winning network guardian.co.uk is the most
popular news website in the UK. The company recognized that
growing demands from users, advertisers and editorial staff were
beginning to strain the capability of is technology. The Bene ts
Partnering with ThoughtWorks, The Guardian developed a new Increased revenue
The new platform features
platform, taking advantage of innovative technology and adopting flexible, contextual advertising
and other enhancements which
new ways of working as part of the process. are significantly increasing page
yields and sales
The Client Increased page views
Content tagging and intuitive
Published by Guardian News and Media, guardian.co.uk is the UK’s most popular news website, with user navigation are already
increasing international reach it is the first UK newspaper site to exceed 20 million unique users*. contributing to a remarkable
Launched in 1999, guardian.co.uk has been voted the best newspaper on the web at the Webby increase in the average number
of pages viewed per visit, or
Awards for three successive years. Owned by the Scott Trust, GNM is financially and editorially
‘stickiness’
independent, and devoted to sustainability through its editorial and business practices.
Flexibility
The Situation The platform and project were
Early adoption of the internet as a news medium led The Guardian to overwhelming leadership in its able to accommodate additional
online market. But that success has a flip side. The Guardian’s business was changing fundamentally; scope outside of planned
activities, delivering new features
rapid changes in digital media were having a profound effect on the way consumers read and share
in response to readers’ needs
news and information. Executives saw opportunities to significantly increase advertising revenue and and competitor activity, within a
visitor retention but innovation was limited by the lack of flexibility of the existing infrastructure. The short timeframe
platform for managing and presenting online content needed to change.
Improved productivity
The editorial staff benefit from
new user features such as
“ThoughtWorks brought development expertise to the multimedia support and intuitive
navigation
project and helped to embed the latest Agile
methodologies into the company. This project is a clear Future ready
The platform is flexible and
success, delivering a variety of technical ambitions.” scalable, built to support and
grow the site with new features,
Mike Bracken, Technology Director of Guardian News and Media as audience growth continues at
20-30% per annum
www.thoughtworks.com *20.499,858 - ABCe June 08

2. Moving the News
The Challenge The Travel site pilot project went live 8 months into the programme
The Guardian specified a programme to build a new platform for its and has since experienced a tenfold increase in the average number
digital media products. This would need to be ultimately flexible, of pages viewed per visitor. The lessons from this phase fed into
scalable and robust but at the same time easy to change and continuous improvement; each subsequent release has been
maintain. It needed to support new features required by advertisers, completed on time and with minimal disruption. February 2008 saw
readers and editors with minimal downtime of the site. the flawless launch of the News, Politics and Observer sites and
integrated audio content – the largest milestone in the collaboration
The main technical challenge was migration of content, ensuring – since then the team has progressed to sites requiring complex
that while both old and new sites used the core database there third party integration, such as Sports, Football, Culture and
would be no breakages. The original system fostered considerable Comment is Free, which are also now live.
content overlap and repetition, which had to be eliminated. In order
to enable dynamic page building, advertising and higher relevancy
across the site, tagging was also a key part of the migration plan.
“We adopted an evolutionary
approach to guardian.co.uk;
The Guardian’s people worked as part of a collaborative team
with ThoughtWorks to gain from their expertise. This arrangement
occasionally we chose to expand our
enhanced their existing experience of Agile development techniques ambition, for example we made the
and software skills to allow them to support the platform and deliver decision to include video half way
future initiatives. through the project. ThoughtWorks
Working Towards a Solution responded positively and exibly –
The Guardian in-house team brought their extensive domain qualities which are characteristic of
expertise and knowledge of the current system to bear, which
was particularly important in kicking off. The new joint team
their approach.”
rapidly worked through high-level requirements, agreeing on the Mike Bracken, Technology Director of Guardian News and Media
implementation road map and technical toolset – a lightweight
Java / Open Source architecture.
The Future
The primary objective was to launch the rebuilt UK and World ThoughtWorks and The Guardian staff used the very latest Agile
News sites. The team devised a route to deliver value at regular management and software delivery techniques to bring the project
points through the life of the project, by staging releases of other to fruition, creating a tailored Agile methodology unique to the
sites in advance of the main News launch. The team was always Guardian’s vibrant culture.
working on requirements that were essential to the primary News
The programme has enabled GNM to further develop its reputation
goal, but through careful planning, other sites’ functionality could be
for innovation, for example layering on community-building features
completed, and so could be made public.
and monetizing its news content. The new platform provides GNM
The team established a consistent practice of delivering a release with the tools and ability to sustain their market-leading position,
to the live site every two weeks; laying the foundations for new and the flexibility to drive forward its plans for yet more innovation
launches while supporting the existing site’s capabilities and and increased reader interaction. Following the remarkable success
shortening the time to market for new functionality. of the programme’s approach the collaborative cultural practices
developed by ThoughtWorks and The Guardian are an important
legacy of the project.
www.thoughtworks.com