10 December 2019
PROJECT MANAGEMENT DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN YOU GET TRANSLATION MANAGEMENT
In this Practical Insight for the guidance of translation buyers, we clarify how project management does not always mean that you get translation management, i.e. there may be no one ensuring the quality of the translation itself throughout the entire documentation even though there is a complete project management process in place.
Project management in the language industry
In the language industry, project management refers to the overall process of managing and overseeing a translation project from start to finish. This includes the quotation stage, assigning the right linguist, managing any terminology databases, budgeting, tracking progress, tracking queries, proofreading, etc. This does not, however, necessarily include ‘translation management’, i.e. management of the actual translation itself.
The responsibility for the actual translation generally lies with the translator(s). While proofreading is often included as a quality control measure, it is simply that – proofreading. There is no project ownership or management function in the proofreader role, nor is such a management function reflected in the compensation for proofreading. For that reason, very experienced translators often decline proofreading roles in projects which require a high level of expertise. The project manager’s job is to manage multiple projects at the same time, each involving different languages and different topics. While this is a generalisation, it is fair to say that this is the prevalent model in the translation industry.
What is translation management?
Legal translation can be particularly vulnerable to such a lack of translation management. Legal terms are less concrete than, say, engineering terms. This makes it difficult to build terminology databases which can simply be applied across the board by different translators to different projects. The most appropriate translation often involves manipulating how an element interacts with the surrounding context rather than employing a one-to-one translation of that element which will work in every context. For that reason, at Anglolingo Legal Linguists, we build a glossary specific to every client or even to every dispute or matter and not specific to a language combination for all matters.
One lone translator, with or without a project manager, can certainly manage their own work, but what about large, urgent and complex documentation requiring five translators to work simultaneously on different parts with no overview of how each separate part relates to the other parts? A natural leader may not emerge from these five when there is no compensation for the additional responsibility.
There must be an experienced person who can understand both the source and the target language, as well as the subject matter, whose role is to make the translation decisions which will produce the best work possible. This means someone has to read the entire documentation, grasp the entire context and how each part relates to the whole, decide what the best solutions are for the translation problems involved and ensure that these solutions are implemented by the entire translation team in a consistent way. This is not ‘proofreading’, nor is it ‘project management’. It is specifically a lead linguist or translation management role which is not a simple final step to be added at the very end of a process.
Be aware of the difference
Therefore, when buying a translation, be aware of what a supplier means when they say they offer project management or translation management solutions with proofreading or revision. This does not necessarily mean that there is a person in place coordinating the integrity of the actual translation across the entire documentation. Such experts with both linguistic and subject-matter expertise are rare and are not a standard role within language service providers.