Everything you need to know about linguistic project management
We’ve recently covered the key factors for better efficiency in linguistic project management and since it’s become such a popular article, let’s expand on it. In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about linguistic project management. Well, at least to an extent of what’s possible.
The three keys to success in linguistic project management we’ve described are :
- skills,
- tools,
- and understanding the industry and the processes within.
Below we’ll focus on the latter. Skills are obviously fundamental, but there’s plenty of content about how to develop, grow and master them to become the ultimate project manager in the language space.
It is, however, understanding the industry and the processes that drive it, what takes the most time to learn. It’s also typically these two elements that make the biggest difference between a seasoned linguistic project manager and one that has just joined the trade.
Let’s discuss these two pillars one by one.
First pillar : Understanding the evolution of organizations
It’s equally impossible to explain the language industry in a single article, just as it is to explain how the world works on just one page of text. However, in order to navigate within both, it will be helpful to understand the power of evolution that shapes it and the “food chain” that it creates.
The easiest and most common way of entry to the translation industry is that of becoming a freelance translator. Freelancers are the “salt of the language earth”. If you would want to place them in the localization food chain, they would be at the very bottom, what means that they are the most critical element of it. After all they provide the translated content and without them – there would be no translation industry whatsoever.
However, as a freelance translator gets better and more popular with time, she or he develops a personal brand that is continuously trusted by its clients. It is then only a matter of until the requests for work exceed the capacity of a single person. The choice then is to either reject work or evolve into a team of linguists, allowing to scale the business.
As it is with evolution, it is in this very moment, where certain individuals decide whether they want to stick to translating as their core activity, or are they more comfortable with coordinating work or maybe even the whole business unit. There is no rule to it, nonetheless, typically at the early stage of growth of such an organism, it would function as what is often called a translation agency. An agent who acts as an intermediary, providing a much needed service, but no additional value to it, beyond just the translation from one language into another.
At this stage of their evolution, translation providers face a dilemma : what’s the next step of their progression. Do they stick to providing services into one target language, strengthening their market position as an SLV (Single Language Vendor)? Or do they diversify the portfolio of languages offered and become an MLV (Multi-Language Vendor)?
Either path can lead to success, as long as you can correctly answer the next question – as a translation provider, do we want to specialize in any type of content or are we more comfortable with handling anything that’s either general content or does not require knowledge from any specific domain.
As growth continues, it is highly desirable to keep your clients loyal to you despite the growing competition. They will mostly want to compete by price and at the latest it is this very moment when you will need to invest in technology that will help you secure the business, by finding untapped efficiencies. Reducing costs without firing team members or optimizing margins without saving on the quality of the work can both be achieved with a Translation Business Management System (TBMS).
For their convenience, your clients will want to see you as a one-stop-shop for everything language related. As soon as your services go beyond just receiving text in one language and delivering it in another one – Congratulations! You have officially become an LSP (a Language Service Provider).
Sitting at the top of the language industry food chain is not always comfortable. You need to be wary of keeping and growing your client base (always add value and never stop tweaking your efficiency), watch for any potential disruptions (teaming up with a reliable technology provider is a good approach as they will have to keep abreast of any changes from outside or within the industry).
Second pillar : Understanding the evolution of processes awareness
As any organization grows, it is critical to look at being efficient from the very first translation project you successfully deliver. Building good habits takes time, so the sooner you start – the sooner you’ll see the benefits. Start with digitalizing knowledge – who are your clients and who are your providers.
How was the quality rated when you used translator A for client B, and was it better than when you used translator C? Who was the proofreader and how do they combine with specific translators? There are many factors that will affect the final quality of the deliverables and it goes way beyond just the linguistic quality of the translation.
As soon as this gets overwhelming and yet you still want to keep on your way to becoming successful and profitable – it may be time to consider implementing a Quality Management System (QMS). The most commonly known and used in the translation industry is ISO 9001. It’s not the most demanding implementation and is a foundation for anything process management related in multiple organizations (not only in the language industry). It will help you expand on your process awareness and achieve repetition in various aspects of your business. This is the first step to achieving predictable quality.
What has for long been the next logical step, was the implementation of the EN 15038 norm. Like the ISO 9001, it helped with process standardization, but focused specifically on elements fundamental to the localization industry. Dealing with an EN 15038 certified provider meant you no longer could be reckless with your names of services, as proofreading, review and revision are three different tasks.
As the industry evolved, it had to acknowledge that professional translation does not just happen – it first needs to be requested and then managed. Therefore the EN 15038 standard was welcomed into the ISO norm family as ISO 17100. The new standard included several changes compared to its predecessor. One of which was to also include non-linguistic, but business roles, i.e. the client and the Project Manager. Instead of seeing the translation as a product, it was now described as a service with a key role of project management, and fundamental importance of scope definition and data protection.
It may sound obvious to us now, but when the ISO 17100 norm was first published in 2015, data protection awareness was anything but a given. The few providers that really took data security seriously had the choice to look into an ISMS (Information Security Management System), namely an ISO 27001 or a SOC II certification. Very similar to each other, both demonstrate an organization’s efforts for security, cybersecurity and data protection.
The maturity of Language Service Providers does not stop there and being really serious about the quality of your linguistic project management efforts, there are plenty more standards that can be considered.
The two most common ones are ISO 18587 and ISO 13485. The first standard is dedicated to organizations offering machine translation (MT) and post-editing services (PE or PEMT). The ISO 13485 is a certification specific to medical device quality assurance processes. Nonetheless, it is quite popular among LSPs providing language services to medical device manufacturers, as it demonstrates their understanding of their clients business and challenges they face.
To conclude, this is by far not everything you need to know about linguistic project management, but it is a good start for anyone who is seriously thinking about excelling in Linguistic Project Management. However, we believe that with the above information you will understand that it is a continuous process, as the evolution never stops.
The market, as well the language industry, continue to constantly evolve. The specific drivers we will see tomorrow, do not necessarily have to be the same as the ones we see now.
Nonetheless, we believe that there will be several that are here to stay, such as the exponential growth of the content both user generated as well as generated by the professional content creators. There will still be content written by humans (like this article), but it will coexist with content created directly by AI. The role of technology will only continue to grow within stages such as the already mentioned content creation, but also further down the path of this content’s life. Finally the pressure on each actor or the process to control the cost and the quality, minimizing the first and growing the latter.
Now that you know how critical it is to keep your knowledge up to date and always look for ways to grow and be more efficient, the more you will be able to appreciate a technology partner that lives by the same values and principles. At Consoltec, we understand the importance of both knowledge and technology and can help achieve your goals with less effort with FlowFit.