What are the most common translation project management challenges for businesses?

1 Scope and specifications

Defining the scope and specifications of a translation project is one of the first steps, but it can be challenging due to incomplete or unclear information, changes or updates during the project, mismatched expectations, and lack of alignment. To avoid these issues, it is crucial to communicate often with the client and translator, use templates and tools to document the scope and specifications, establish a change management process, and review and validate the work regularly.

2 Resources and skills

When managing a translation project, an important step is to select and allocate the right resources and skills for the task. This involves finding qualified and experienced translators with the necessary expertise, availability, and access to tools, software, glossaries, style guides, and reference materials. However, some challenges that can arise in this area include a shortage or unavailability of translators, inadequate or outdated tools or software that hinder the translation process or quality, inconsistent or conflicting glossaries, style guides, or reference materials that cause confusion or errors, and a lack of feedback or support from the client or the translator. To address these issues, it's advisable to build and maintain a network of reliable and skilled translators, invest in and update the tools and software that facilitate the translation process and quality, create and share clear and comprehensive glossaries, style guides, and reference materials, and provide and solicit feedback and support throughout the project.

3 Quality and accuracy

The main goal of translation project management is to ensure the quality and accuracy of the final product, which means delivering a translation that meets expectations and conveys the intended meaning and message. However, there are various challenges that can affect the quality and accuracy of the translation, such as ambiguous or complex source text, diverse target audiences, tight deadlines or budgets, and limited quality assurance or control measures. To address these issues, it is essential to analyze and clarify the source text, understand the target audience's expectations and needs, negotiate a realistic deadline and budget that allows enough time for translation, and implement a rigorous quality assurance and control process with editing, proofreading, testing, and reviewing.

4 Delivery and feedback

The last step in translation project management is to deliver the final product to the client and to collect and analyze their feedback. This requires ensuring that the translation is delivered on time, in the agreed format and medium, as well as adhering to the scope and specifications. It's also important to solicit and evaluate the client's feedback on the translation quality, accuracy, satisfaction, and impact. However, some challenges can arise in this step such as technical or logistical issues that delay or prevent delivery, missing or incomplete delivery instructions or requirements from the client or translator, negative or unsatisfactory feedback from the client or end users, and lack of follow-up or improvement actions based on the feedback. To prevent these issues, it is necessary to plan and test the delivery method and format of the translation, confirm and comply with delivery instructions and requirements from both parties, handle and resolve any feedback issues professionally and promptly, and use feedback as an opportunity to learn and improve translation process quality.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?