You need to deliver a translation project on time and within budget. What’s the first step?

1 Project analysis

Project analysis is the process of examining the project specifications, requirements and scope, and identifying the potential challenges, risks and opportunities. It helps you to define the project objectives, set realistic deadlines and budgets, and allocate the appropriate resources and tools. Project analysis is essential for planning, executing and evaluating a translation project, as it allows you to anticipate and prevent problems, avoid rework and ensure quality and consistency.

2 How to conduct project analysis

Project analysis is a unique process for each project, but there are some common steps to follow. These include reviewing the project brief and source files, assessing the complexity and difficulty of the project, identifying resources and tools, communicating with the client and team, and documenting the project analysis. When reviewing the brief and source files, check for purpose, audience, tone, style, format, special instructions, glossaries, style guides, or reference materials. Assess the language pair, domain, terminology, culture, and technical aspects of the project to estimate time and effort needed. Identify resources and tools such as CAT tools, machine translation software, quality assurance tools, file converters, translators, editors, proofreaders and other specialists. Communicate with the client to clarify doubts or queries about specifications, requirements and scope. Create a project plan summarizing objectives, scope, schedule, budget, resources, tools, quality standards and risk management strategies. Share the project plan with client and team for approval.

3 Why project analysis matters

Project analysis is not a waste of time or a bureaucratic procedure, but rather a valuable investment that can save time, money and headaches in the long run. Through conducting a thorough project analysis, you can enhance your performance by delivering high-quality translations that meet or exceed the client’s expectations and requirements, while also avoiding errors, inconsistencies and misunderstandings that could compromise your reputation and credibility. Additionally, you can optimize your resources by using the most efficient and effective tools for the project, reducing costs and increasing productivity by eliminating unnecessary or redundant tasks and processes. Furthermore, you can manage your risks by identifying and mitigating potential threats that could affect the project outcome such as delays, scope creep, technical issues or client dissatisfaction. You can also prepare contingency plans and backup solutions in case of unforeseen circumstances. Lastly, you can improve your evaluation by measuring and monitoring your progress and performance throughout the project, comparing actual results with planned objectives and scope, as well as collecting feedback and data to help improve future projects. Overall, project analysis is the first and most important step to deliver a translation project on time and within budget.

4 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?