5 Most Effective Approaches To a Successful Localization Project Management

If you are a professional project manager, you can better understand how daunting it is to do continuous localization project management. For every new market you are targeting, you have to do proper research and come up with effective strategies to execute your localization plan.

Project managers are the driving force of a localization project. They have to take care of multiple activities and operations that demand time, investment, and effort. It is important for professional project managers to use the right practices and techniques to seamlessly navigate through the localization project.

This article talks about the five most effective practices that project managers can use for their localization project management.

How to Manage Your Localization Project Effectively?

Localization project management is a complex and serious job that comes with a lot of challenges. Here are some good practices you must follow as a professional project manager.

Identity Your Project Scope

Not all localization projects are the same. Every project has its own requirements and goals that it wants to achieve. To clearly identify your project scope, you may need to ask various questions like:

• What is the business domain and niche, for which you are managing the localization?
• Which tools, resources, technologies, and professional support you must have to manage the project?
• What are the source and target languages of the project?
• What are the QA processes, translation methods, and workflow used to get quick and quality outcomes?

Answering these above-mentioned questions would help you have a good idea about your project scope. So, you can make informed decisions and create more effective project execution strategies.

Do Proper Budgeting

Before the project begins, you must have evaluated the financial risks and figured out the project budget. It is important for project managers to carefully forecast all the expected project expenses throughout the localization journey. Project managers must keep their project budget and expenses very transparent to shareholders. It will allow us to do more realistic project budgeting, involving all shareholders. When your budgeting process is closely monitored by shareholders, they will have fewer doubts about your credibility, and they may increase your budget at any point in time whenever you need it. If you don’t have any financial experience, it is better to hire a finance expert or outsource the financial part to a third-party service provider. 

Implement Effective Communication Channels

Project managers have to pay good attention to implementing proper communication channels to enable seamless communication between in-house and remote teams. Gaps in communication can have a direct impact on your localization project, and it significantly reduces project misunderstanding. Moreover, if you are using a localization project management platform, it may already have communication features integrated. It will help you provide a safe digital workplace for teams working in-house and remotely. So, if you want to avoid conflicts, you should have enabled real-time collaboration with localization teams.

Use A Localization Project Management System

Along with adopting other best localization project management practices, you must also invest in a professional localization management platform. When you have a reliable and advanced localization platform in place, it significantly reduces your workload and helps you streamline your translation operations. You can customize the features of your cloud based localization management system depending on your project scope and its unique localization needs. However, it is also important to get your localization platform subscription from a reliable language service provider only.

Outsource Excessive Workload 

Project managers already have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders, but they must not over-exhaust themselves and their teams. Because it will only lead to quality issues and a lack of job satisfaction. Project managers should always remain open to outsourcing their project tasks whenever things blow out of proportion. It will also help project managers keep things going smoothly by outsourcing their operations.

Moreover, you can easily find professional freelancers online who are available in different time zones to work on your translation projects. Or, if you are using a cloud-based localization management platform, it may have its own freelance linguist community. It makes outsourcing more convenient, hassle-free, and quick.

Conclusion

Localization project management is a time-consuming and challenging job indeed but having the right execution plan and practices in place helps you smoothly navigate through all the complications. For any project manager, it is important to have a deep understanding of different management techniques, tools, and technologies to effectively get away with all issues related to task management, team communication, quality assurance, and translation management.

Moreover, make sure to choose a reliable localization project management platform that has all the advanced functionalities to help you manage your translation project tasks effortlessly.