Project management is a large category in terms of skill set. A good translation Project Manager (or PM for short) will have the skills and knowledge of the industry to complete your project timely, handling all sorts of issues behind the scenes to relieve you of any worry about the project’s success.
In this post, we’ll analyze the role of the translation PM to explain how having an excellent PM to coordinate your project can give you peace of mind through exceptional quality in your deliverables.
But what does a translation PM do?
Analyze Source Documents
The first step in a translation project is to reach out to your PM and send over the files you’d like to have translated. These can range from simple Word documents to complex design files. Your PM will analyze the files and ask relevant questions: What languages and locales do you need? Do the images need to be recreated? Does this video require voice-over and subtitling? They may even ask questions regarding the target audience you’re hoping to reach. The PM will know which questions to ask to create the project plan.
Create a Project Plan
After analyzing the source files, PM can create a specific project plan unique to the project’s needs. PM begins reaching out to different resources, calculating timelines, choosing the most related teams regarding skill sets and language pairs, and much more! Once the project plan is created, PM will send over a quote and wait for approval before getting started.
Walk The Client Through The Process And Explain Industry Terminology If Needed
The PM Team should walk you through their quotes and explain differences within terminology (editing vs. proofreading, phrase-sync subtitles vs. UN-style subtitles, what is a translation memory, and why it is important to me? etc.). Your PM is like a part of your team!
Check Final Work Before Delivery
After every project, your PM will perform their quality assurance step before delivering the final files to you. PM will ensure that the final files will adhere to the scope of the project, and unless otherwise specified, they will be a 1-to-1 comparison of the source files you submitted at the beginning of the project. A PM will be looking for issues like sentences that are missing punctuation, text that is cut off, or the right images on the correct pages according to the source files. A PM may even notice a typo in the source files, and they’ll be sure to let you know. This is the last step before the files are finalized and sent to you.
Final Thoughts
A dedicated PM is critical to the success of your translation projects. They are essential in every step of the translation process to deliver what is needed for your project. Your PM is a vital resource to bring your translation projects to reality.
