By Arushi Kapoor

This is a transcription in English of Part 2 of the Project Management Simplified talk on Modlingua's YouTube channel, applying the basics of project management to the translation business. Read the transcription of Part 1 or watch this talk on Modlingua's YouTube channel.

Applying project management to translation

As we discussed in the first part of this lecture, project management rests on a few key points, especially planning, scheduling, controlling and closing. Having learnt these fundamental aspects of project management, we will now apply them to translation processes and the management of a translation business.

In our previous lecture we tried to understand what project management is, what its basic principles are, and how it helps any process achieve good execution through planning, scheduling, time management, controlling and closing. If we take the same thing back to our translation business, we have to take into consideration project management integration in our processes. The idea is to bring in all those principles of planning, scheduling, execution, controlling and closing.

The first point of integration is defining scope, defining time, defining cost, and understanding the quality requirements of the client. Based on these requirements you hire human resources and set up communication, and while doing all these activities you cover the risk and then do procurement. Once the procurement is done, it must be documented; documentation must be done throughout. And the last part is change.

Managing change

All these points, scope, time, cost, quality, human resource, communication, risk, procurement and documentation, are always documented. But over a period of time there are chances that certain requirements will change: a change in scope, a change in the time schedule, a sudden increase or decrease in the cost of the project, new quality requirements, a human resource you need being unavailable, a communication gap, an additional risk coming into the picture, procurement not going smoothly, or documentation not done properly. In our project management process there must be provisions for how to integrate these changes when they occur.

If we do not adapt, for example if the scope stays static but time, cost and human resources have changed, the delivery may not be smooth. If the cost changes, the scope cannot remain the same, the time cannot remain the same, and the quality cannot remain the same. Similarly, if communication is not happening, your time may change and your cost and quality may be affected. One change can affect the whole process of project management. So whatever process we define, we should always keep in mind that change can take place, and we must adapt as soon as possible so that our project does not get delayed and goes smoothly to the client. This is the basic idea behind integrating project management into translation.

The translation workflow: client, agency and translator

Let us look at the typical workflow of a translation company. I have made it for a translation company deliberately, because it covers clients as well as translators. A client may develop their own workflow, which will be different; a translator may have a totally different kind of workflow. For an agency, both clients and translators are important. For a translator, either the direct client or an agency is important. For the client, their project is most important, so their workflow may focus only on the project.

Broadly, the workflow runs like this. On the client side there are preparations, a request for quotation, and the signing of an agreement or non-disclosure agreement, with price, time and quality put into the contract. The agency signs a non-disclosure agreement with the client and, before the agreement, understands its own human resources, whether any CAT tool is needed, and the cost of the project. Keeping all these factors in mind, the agency sends a proposal with the terms and conditions of payment and any risk contingencies it wants to put in place. Once the agency receives the purchase order, it hires the translators and gives instructions, which may cover quality standards; the agency may supply a glossary or ask the translator to prepare one and send it to the client for approval.

Then the translator comes into the picture. The translator also signs a non-disclosure agreement with the agency, evaluates the document and the price, and agrees on the terms, conditions and quality standards. Irrespective of the price agreed, the translator has to deliver each and every point religiously as per the agreement. They will give the document a visual inspection, understand the number of words and the cost of the project, and once the negotiations between the translator and the agency are complete, the agreement takes place. Many times an agreement may take place only through mail, with no formality. As per law, an agreement can even happen verbally or on the telephone; it is a gentleman's promise. Any communication, whether explicit or implied, is a contract as long as there is a fee involved; in lieu of a certain value or service, you deliver something. There is always a consideration between the two parties, and if there is no consideration, there is no contract.

The translation is done professionally, and quality control is done by the translator, at their individual capacity or with their team: a close colleague, associate, family member, or alone. If it is declared to the agency that the translation is going to be proofread, it must be proofread; if it is not going to be proofread, the translator has to declare that they will only translate because they have no one to proofread, and the agency will accordingly arrange a proofreader. Once this is done, the translator delivers to the agency. The agency's proofreader or quality controller reads the document, and if everything is fine it is sent to the client. The client's project manager finds everything in order, approves it, and on the agreed price and payment terms you receive the payment. The project is closed.

If the client has feedback, it is given to the agency; based on the feedback the agency talks to the translator, the translator makes the changes and returns the work to the agency, the agency reads it again and returns it to the client. That is how the improvement process takes place between client, agency and translator. After a few projects, a good understanding develops and everything runs smoothly.

Choosing agencies carefully

But if a translator starts playing their cards, the agency runs into trouble, the client runs into trouble, and the cycle breaks. Similarly, if the client starts becoming smart with the agency, the relationship goes haywire and both lose. And if the agency starts becoming smart with the translator, the relationship with translators will deteriorate, and the agency will run pillar to post for every project seeking a new translator. That is a big loss for the agency, because without a team they spend half their energy not on executing projects but only on locating people. You will find such agencies in plenty all over the world; my suggestion is to avoid them, because if you are in a relationship with them you are running at risk and can get into trouble any time.

Before entering into a relationship with any agency, find the best possible methods to check their credibility, their credentials, their payment practices and their reputation. Talk to your friends and to trustworthy people in the industry; ask questions and they will tell you who is who. Participate in forums and on social media. Keep moving like a river; if you get stagnant you will not get information, but if you are current, moving like water, you will get every bit of information about what is going on in the world.

Linguistic quality standards

Now, as I have told you about quality management and quality standards in translation before, in project management it is very important to maintain both the linguistic and the non-linguistic aspects of translation. As per SAE J2450 of the Society of Automotive Engineers, which covers the linguistic aspects, if you put errors on a scale of 1 to 10 you will understand that wrong terms are never accepted in translation. Similarly, syntactic errors are never accepted, and critical omissions are not accepted. For example, if I ask for the translation of my salary certificate and the amount is not mentioned in the translation, that is a critical omission. It means I am liable to be rejected and not paid; you cannot say "I have translated 100 words but left only one word", because that one word in a salary slip is the salary of the person. If you have missed that, you have missed everything. Sentence structure, agreement of verb and gender, and spelling are all very important. You must spell-check; punctuation errors, quotation errors and similar miscellaneous errors all count.

These linguistic errors tell you that if you are not controlling errors, whatever good things you do in your work, your translation is of no use for the client. One word can have 50 meanings, and that is what you have been hired for: not to pick the wrong meaning, but to put in exactly the meaning that is required. Many times two terms can have two different or similar meanings. In those conditions, instead of guessing, it is better to ask the client: "This word has two possible terms; can you suggest which one is suitable, or which one you have used in your past translations?" A good client will be happy to reply. But if the client says, "I have asked you for the translation, just give me the translation, don't bother me", then you can be sure this person is not going to check your translation at all. Even so, it is always good to do translations with the client in consideration.

Non-linguistic quality standards

Similarly, there are non-linguistic aspects. When you are using CAT tools you are told to do certain tasks: for example, do not cross a certain number of characters in a particular line, and do not leave translations missing or forgotten. Many times you face corrupt characters. There can be inconsistency between source and target: if the source document has 10 sentences but the translation has 11, or only 8, that is not a linguistic problem; it is a non-linguistic problem. Anyone who is not even a translator can tell you that your translation is of no use by simply checking these basic things. You may not be an expert in Japanese, but you can tell that a particular translation has not been done properly, and you can send it back and say: check it, you have given us trash. You do not need to be an expert to check the quality of a translator, because these are all basic requirements. If somebody is linguistically careless, they will be non-linguistically careless most of the time too. Any common, experienced manager who has no linguistic capability can check your quality on these points and put you to shame.

So when you are entering into a contract with any agency or company, ask for all the basic information and requirements in detail, including quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, numbers and number formatting. For example, take the 9th of April 2017: one person will write 9/4/2017 and another will write 4/9/2017; it depends on the locale, and this is called localization. For America I would write 4/9/2017; for Britain, 9/4/2017. Apart from the linguistic aspects, you have to take all these non-linguistic aspects equally into consideration.

Terminology and consistency

Terminology is very important. Everything else may be good, but if you have not maintained consistency in terminology it shows. For example, if at one point you write "better", in the next paragraph "good", and in the last paragraph "best", all for one word, that is not good consistency, and anyone can point it out. Unless the meaning certainly calls for "better" or "best", using a different word each time is an error.

There are also terms which are not translated. Certain names, for example Modlingua, cannot be translated into Hindi; even in Hindi, Modlingua will remain Modlingua. Similarly there are tags, including tags in capitals; if there are identical tags, you need to put those tags into the target sentences as well. If you miss a tag, it means you have missed a word, and these tags are very important, because they may carry a meaning when the file is converted into an MS Word file: a right mark, a cross mark, a figure or a sign. If you have missed that, you have missed a major part of the task.

With this, I would like to extend my sincere thanks for your time and for your interest in project management in the translation business. If you have any questions or doubts, please do let us know, and do subscribe to Modlingua's YouTube channel.