Localization Project Management Log

How are you getting through this recession? Assuming you can keep your own body and soul together, can you keep your localization program from slipping into a coma?

A few anecdotes from recent conversations and transactions:

• A fellow L10n project manager complained over lunch about slashed budgets and an increasingly impatient boss on the other side of the planet. Fortunately, he takes some kind of pleasure in figuring out how to do more with less, but some mornings he spends the commute time wishing he could relocate tomorrow without turning his back on his mortgage, benefits and (frozen) salary.
• All that budget-slashing and money-saving today means you’re resuscitating a feeble program in two years, when things pick back up. We’ve managed a pick-up-the-pieces project like that, and spent most of our time combing network storage for archives, glossaries, TMs and any other forgotten assets. What a mess.
• The operations director at a language provider told me what she’s seen every time there’s a downturn: “Our clients lay off the people who know what they’re doing in localization, and all sorts of expertise goes up in smoke. Then, underlings without a clue about the subject jump (or get thrown into) the breach to maintain the programs, and our project managers spend a lot of time educating. They’re used to doing that for normal attrition, but when suddenly a large percentage of our clients need hand-holding, projects really slow down.
• We submitted a proposal in January that was orally accepted in February and approved for requisition two weeks ago. When the client showed me the chain of approvals for the requisition, I thought it was solid enough to start work, so I did. Two days ago a purchasing agent with the client’s company sent me e-mail, calmly expecting a 7% reduction on the project total. Stay tuned.

With my other hat – marketing – I look for the silver lining, the opportunity in all of this. One of my clients plays the card of positioning yourself as best you can for the day when things recover, so you can leave your competitors envious and gasping in the dust. But how can you do that without spending big money?

Invest in your relationships: Take engineers and product managers out to lunch. Let them cry on your shoulder, then once they’ve calmed down, let them know what you do for a living. This is a good time to open up the black box of localization and gently explain the voodoo you do.

And stop reading the business section of the newspaper (if your town still has one). I’ll tell you when it’s safe to read it again.

You’re a localization project manager. What makes you any different from other localization project managers?

Marketing people devote careers to answering this question, and because they’re in Marketing and we don’t know what they do, we assume that it doesn’t apply to us. But stop and think about your next salary review, and come up with a few things to mention to your boss that make you different from other project managers:

• Are you learning new technologies that the company will care about in the near future?
• Are you specializing in projects, customers or terminology of strategic value to the company?
• Can you point to a sum of money you’ve saved the company by doing something new?
• Have you asked your clients to recommend you on LinkedIn, so that you can show your profile to your boss? (What could be easier than that?) (You are on LinkedIn, aren’t you?)
• Do you have an idea of what you want to do beyond managing localization projects, and have you discussed it with your boss?

These help you formulate your unique value proposition (UVP), as those inscrutable people in Marketing call it; the combination of talents and drive that makes you different. If you’re not different – or are different, but you don’t show it – you’ll stay where you are. If you’re different – and show it – you’ll stand out in your boss’ mind.

Common Sense Advisory has posted a Quick Take for its subscribers called “The Makings of an Innovative LSP.” They look at every vendor’s eternal quest for something above commodity status and describe the characteristics of vendors who have succeeded in differentiating themselves from their competitors.

This company-level perspective applies to those of us in the trenches as well. Are you learning another language? Have you taken a class to learn sales techniques to close more business? Do you have the skills to train incoming project managers? Are you learning about search engine marketing or other ways to generate leads? Can you put together a paper and present it at ATA?

Start working on your UVP. And see whether your marketing manager knows what that stands for.

Have you said this lately? Have you thought it lately? Do you wish you’d joined the Rolling Stones when they invited you?

What do you plan to do after localization? What will you do next in your career?

Look at the localization people around you. How did they get into this business? How has their job changed since they did what you’re now doing? At least two prominent figures in our industry started out as professionals (attorney and tax consultant), then started small translation companies that grew very large. Neither of them translates anything or manages projects anymore, but both have used the industry as a springboard to broader career paths.

On the vendor-side, translators become project managers, who become leads, who become salespeople, who ultimately run the company, or start their own. On the client-side, localization managers become product managers, who become directors of product marketing. On either side, your company could easily be purchased and you might have to start over from scratch. Will you be ready?

I’ve visited high school and college classes to describe to language students how they can use their talents to enter several industries, including translation/localization. It hasn’t occurred to me to address the question, “After that, what?”

Of course, you don’t need to wait until you’ve grown tired of localization to start planning your own outplay. If you don’t have another marketable talent in your back pocket right now, then you must not be reading the newspapers. Years ago I had a very discerning boss who asked me in confidence, “In how many completely different ways can you earn a living? You should always be accumulating multiple talents you could apply to make money, if you had to.”

So, during the day you’re a localization manager, and at night you offer bookkeeping services to small businesses. Or, Monday through Friday you run translation projects, and on Saturdays you do search engine optimization for friends’ Web sites.

Yes, it’s more work, but when the localization train reaches the last station and you get off (or are pushed off), you’ll have more options in picking the train to board next.