Translating content into a dozen languages can be overwhelming.
You have to hire translators, assign translation tasks, share translation files between teams, answer questions about everything from punctuation guidelines to how a product works, and make sure that translation errors don’t fall through the cracks.
That’s a lot to manage, considering managing translation projects likely isn’t your core work.
To make the entire process easier, read through the key steps involved in translation project management and discover a tool that will transform your translation management process forever.
Who should manage a translation project?
It really depends on your available resources. If you’re hiring someone solely to manage your translation projects, they should have experience in project management such as developing and managing scope, scheduling, budgeting, and quality control.
It would also help if they understand the nuances of translation projects to elicit the best performance from translators, editors, and any other roles involved in the project.
For complex translation projects, you might want to hire a localization manager.
Otherwise, companies often delegate translation management to product managers or project managers who are already embedded in the company.
When to use a translation project manager
You might not always need a project manager for small translation projects or one-off translation projects. However, certain types of translation projects benefit from a project manager leading the fray:
- For multiple translations at once. Projects involving translating into several languages simultaneously, where coordination and consistency are crucial to success. Without someone overseeing all of these translations, things may get lost or overlooked in the process. This can impact the final translation quality.
- For ongoing translations. Continuous or long-term projects need a project manager in charge. Product software, websites, games, and mobile apps are a few examples of things that are changing all the time and often need translations. Having someone on top of these translations ensures that you deliver the project on time and to the required standard.
- For high-quality, localized content. Projects that require precise, cultural adaptations and high-quality outputs will benefit from a translation project manager. translation project managers will ensure that these projects go through all the necessary phases, stages of approval, and are translated by the best people for the job. As a result, you can produce top-quality content for your international audience.
Challenges of managing translation projects
Translation project managers face unique challenges outside the remit of traditional project management. Here are some of the common hurdles:
- Localization. For content to truly resonate with an audience, you may need to localize content. This means adapting an entire brand or product for a specific market. It’s a very specific and nuanced process, which can be hard for translation project managers to oversee. It’s much more nuanced than simple translation, making it hard to measure consistency, quality and accuracy.
- Working with different people and teams. Much of the translation project team may be temporary or freelance translators, which can be tricky to manage. There’s often lots of back and forth (which can cause communication silos), sending translation files (which can sometimes get lost in email threads), responding to questions, and so on. This is where a centralized translation system can help, standardizing the translation process and storing vital documentation in one location.
- Ensuring accuracy. It’s unlikely that the translation project manager will be fluent in all the target languages, meaning that it can be challenging for them to ensure total translation accuracy. For example, the gaseous fallout from Ikea’s Fartful children’s desk, which in Swedish means “full speed”. translation project managers will have processes in place to ensure total accuracy before launching new content. For example, having multiple editors review the same text for language quality assurance.
Who will a translation project manager need on their team?
Simple translation projects typically include a small handful of contributors, including the following:
- Editors: Identifies and makes changes to improve context, style, and content. They’re part of the quality assurance (QA) process.
- Proofreaders: Fixes spelling, punctuation, and grammar problems.
- Translators: Writes and creates new content in the desired language.
More complex projects call for a larger pool of talent, often including more specialized roles:
- Designers: Revises and redesigns graphics to align with the new translation, ensuring they’re culturally appropriate, localized, and within the expansion rate. For example “FAQ” in English becomes “Preguntas frecuentes” in Spanish, taking up more space.
- Developers: Creates websites or designs for new audiences, ensuring the user experience isn’t impacted by the translated content or the new web layout.
- Video and audio editors: Edits videos, audio, or related media to match the new translation.
- Marketing team: Prepares for launch in the new market, making sure that all the marketing content is transcreated and adapted to the culture.
- Subject matter experts (SMEs): Ensures all translated content is accurate (this usually applies to technical translations, like financial or medical documentation).
- Market experts: Make sure products and services are culturally relevant, for exampl, making sure you’re offering the most popular payment options for each market.
5 steps to successful translation project management
These steps apply to a basic translation process. You may need additional steps or processes for something more complex — or if the translation is continuous (more on this later). Even if your translation is complex, you can still use these steps as your foundation to get started.
1. Initiate the project
Start by initiating the project, which involves the following steps:
- Define scope and objectives. This includes defining the target language(s), the different elements to be translated, and what the final outputs will look like.
- Determine the resources needed. For example, how many translators do you need? Do you need developers to restructure code to enable future maintenance and future languages? Do you need a tool to help you manage translations?
- Build the schedule. Clearly outline exactly what the project will entail, the budget for delivering the project, and the timeframe required to complete it. Not only will this provide clarity to the project team, but it’s also useful for increasing buy-in and support from higher-level executives. In some cases, you may need their approval before you can start the project.
- Assemble the project team. Outline who will be part of your project team and assign roles and responsibilities. This will ensure that everyone knows what their role is in the project and what they’re expected to deliver.
2. Start the pre-translation preparation
Before the translation begins, you must collect and identify all the source material for translation.
This means pinpointing exactly what you need to be translated across different mediums — from online copy to print.
Let’s use an app as an example.
The code itself doesn’t need to be translated, although it does need to be internationalized to support different languages, but user-facing elements do:
- Menu items
- Buttons
- User instructions
- Notifications
- Account information
- Audio and videos
With a clear picture of exactly what needs to be translated, you can finalize your schedule, ensuring you have the budget and resources available to complete the translation effectively.
Then, you can create linguistic assets, like style guides and glossaries to help the translator understand the tone, style, and terminology you use.
3. Get the project underway
When the translation project is underway, translators start converting source content into the target language. But the most important part of this stage is quality assurance and control.
Translation project managers must ensure that editors and proofreaders review the content to make sure it aligns with the intent, meaning, style, and accuracy of the original text. They also must ensure the content is localized and will appeal to the target audience.
If the editors have feedback, they can either make the changes themselves or send it back to the translators to edit the text.
4. Deliver the final translation
Prepare and check the final deliverables and deliver the results to whoever needs to sign off before launch. For example, if you’ve translated a mobile app, you might need to run the final translation product management, marketing leadership, and a UX specialist before it can go live.
Be sure to document the entire translation process, including tools used, workflow steps, and solutions implemented. This will be helpful during the next phase, when you reflect on performance and identify areas of improvement.
You should also put metrics in place to measure translation success. For example, the level of translation accuracy, turnaround time, translation costs, and user feedback.
5. Wrap it up and monitor performance
Finally, keep track of performance to ensure that your translated content is well received by your target audience. If feedback or performance suggests that the translation isn’t landing well, you can hop back in and make changes.
At this stage, you can also establish guidelines for future projects. Outline what went well and what to avoid to ensure future projects are a success.
💡Ongoing translation projects require a different approach
These steps apply to projects with a finite beginning and end. If you’re managing ongoing projects where new texts come in every week and with no clear end date, the process is slightly different.
Instead of following each step in order, you might continually backtrack between various steps before the project can move forward.
For example, you might move between gathering the translation documentation you need (step two) and starting the translation (step three). Then a new piece of translation comes into play and you’re back to step two again.
What we’re trying to say is this: use these steps in different orders if you have constant updates and moving end dates for your translation projects.
How can a translation management system help?
A translation management system (TMS) is a platform that facilitates the translation and localization management process.
It makes translation management process more efficient, since you can automate a lot of translation tasks and bring everything together in one place, instead of trying to manage everything with spreadsheets and via email.
Here’s a quick overview of what you can do with a TMS:
- Have one place where you can track multilingual content collaboration and communication
- Use built-in translation capabilities, including artificial intelligence (AI), and machine translation
- Get direct access to translators and language service providers
- Easily upload and share linguistic assets like style guides and glossaries
- Automatically save and reuse your translations
- Integrate tools to support existing workflows
- Assign roles and privileges and create translation reports
- Automate workflows and create tasks based on events
- Provide context for translators
- Set up notifications to get reminders and updates about project activities
- Reduce manual work for developers
Improve translation management with Lokalise
Translation project management plays a vital role in successful translation. It covers the key steps, involves the right people in the process, and allows you to track progress and performance.
But doing it successfully is tricky. Use this article as a starting point to ensure you cover the key aspects of translation project managment— and don’t forget the value of a translation management system.
With a platform like Lokalise, you can streamline, automate, and improve your entire translation process.
Take an interactive Lokalise tour or sign up for a 14-day free trial.
