What are the best ways to manage a team of translators?

Planning ahead presupposes that you know what you are doing. You can plan all you want. If you haven’t managed hundreds of translation projects you are in for a ride. If you don’t have the experience make sure to have someone you can rely on for guidance. If you don’t you can plan all you want and still have a disaster on your hands.

I think it’s also important to build in time for delays/errors/changes by the client. A bit of leeway is essential even if the plan is optimised to avoid problems, as clearly outlined above.

To effectively manage a team of translators, select top-rated professionals, form a team with a lead translator and two others for editing and proofreading. Maintain consistency in assigning work to build familiarity with the client's materials and intended audience. Once the team is established and valued, they will work seamlessly, collaborate on terminology, and handle client communication, allowing you to focus on enjoying the process with confidence in their support.

Effective translation team management: #Communication: Maintain clear and open channels. #Roles: Define responsibilities based on expertise. #Tech Tools: Use translation software for efficiency. #Feedback: Establish a quality control feedback loop. #Cultural Sensitivity: Emphasize understanding nuances. #Training: Invest in continuous skill development. #Project Management: Track progress and meet deadlines. #Recognition: Reward outstanding performance. #Collaboration: Foster teamwork and support. #Adaptability: Be flexible in handling challenges. ???? #Translation #TeamManagement #Localization

One thing I found helpful was my English proficiency. During my journey working with auib to get them their supplies was that I were more proficient in English than they were , I could explain myself well, later on it become a duty to translate for others. That being said translation from a language to another makes the world more connected and comfortable with what they have so that they could gain more knowledge according to their spot and / or career level. I am also glad that as a developer we are working on ML technology that would connect us even more , and closer with the further continuous support of Google translate so that we can take that we can all take one leap towards a brighter better tomorrow and get closer as humans.

In my experience these words all sound wonderful but they mean different things to different people: trust, rapport, clarity. In my opinion it’s imperative to build a team that communicates easily with you. If you have to put in too much time and effort into check ins, check lists, etc it’s an unsustainable process. I would focus more on building a team where communication is simple, natural and effective.

When you lead a project sometimes you do not have all the facts. Receiving information on a need-to-know basis is very frustrating for the PM, so imagine for the collaborators. Sustained communication as well as timely and constructive feedback make a project see the light faster and more efficiently.

No sense in using the right tool if you don’t know how to use it. There are plenty of good tools out there. You must know exactly the drivers to a successful translation from a tooling perspective : a reliable translation memory and a relatively small but pertinent glossary. Other than that make sure the files parse in a translator friendly way. You can get lost in the weeds of tooling that produce decreasing marginal utility. Keep it simple and effective.

What's the use of tools when a translator does not have professional university training? Tools will never be able to run componential analyses or check for overlapping semantic fields. Therefore, you may excel in the use of CA tools or Chat GPT and create nothing but text hallucinations.

As years go by, I get increasingly "term-intensive": experience shows that comprehensive term-and-phrase glossaries that are grown and curated during the project are an absolute must for projects in a team. Work hard on your terms early in the project and have a "term-master" on top of things and you will save a lot of time later on!

In my 20 year experience error free, clear and fit for purpose mean different things for different people. Multiple workflow steps often do not add to quality either. What does brutally improve quality is using your very best translator first. It’s more effective to pay them more and give them more time so that they have the resources to dig deeper, research and evaluate their own work than having multiple people take a shallow look at the work. In my opinion a great well rewards translator delivers beautiful work most of the time while you can have numerous less skilled translators in multiple workflow steps and a robust framework and still end up with less than optimal quality.

I have been asked to evaluate client complaints on translations that had gone through many layers of people in highly structured processes... with unacceptable results. Quality is not a matter of adding layers to the process: it requires choosing the right people for the job.

Your work team should always include a proofreader and editor trained in the latest changes in grammar, vocabulary, and semantics. To err is human, so nobody who trained 25 years ago is free from the age bias.

You can have all the quality management systems you like in place, but they don't mean a thing if you are prepared to work with poor quality suppliers. It seems to be common practice now for agencies to use cheap translators and then hope that the pig's ear can be turned into a silk purse at the proofreading stage. If the client won't allow you the time needed to deliver a quality product, again, what can be achieved in terms of quality management will be limited. Too many clients have unreasonable expectations in terms of project delivery fuelled by outrageous promises from translation agencies that they can turn round tens of thousands of words in 24 hours.

No-one welcomes unstructured critical feedback. When a good translator has not been given sufficient time to complete the translation their work will fall short. Criticising them at that point is a fruitless task. Think about how long it took to produce the original document - how many pairs of eyes have had input - and then give the translator the same amount of time to translate it for you. Translation tends to be forgotten in the project management cycle and is stuck on at the end. I have lost count of the number of times we have been asked to translate 20 pages of technical translation in 24 hours. I refuse such assignments but someone takes it on. The translated output can't be fit for purpose.

In my experience if you have to provide too much feedback there is something wrong with the team or the process. Good teams adjust themselves in runtime and feedback is all but a formality. It can be useful at times but it should be the exception not the rule.

Feedback should be short, objective, and tactful. There is no need to keep you in a zoom / room / office for 1 hour when you could schedule a 30-min power meeting. You want to be clear regarding the structure of the feedback: 1) positive 2) negative 3) positive. And everything flows much better when you choose the right collaborators.

My approach: give good positive and not-that-positive feedback, but not too much feedback. A post-mortem [virtual] meeting with three or four main ideas is far more effective with most people than detailed feedback on individual questionable translations.

This is so true especially in the translation industry where the norm is after delivering a project a translator is usually ghosted until they are needed again. If you want to keep your team of translators happy make sure that you are doing these 3 things: 1- You answer them after they deliver a project acknowledging you have received their file, if they have delivered before the deadline thank them for it. 2- Provide any feedback that you may get from the end client (if you are a translation agency owner) or if you are the end client, make sure you let them know what your thoughts are, if possible leave a written or video testimonial. 3- This does not happen all the time but if you can give a bonus, it makes a big difference!

Well said, Mariona! And that communication, be it project-related or mere kind pleasantries, is key to establish and maintain a strong team mentality. We work harder together when we feel appreciated and heard.

Yes, being ghosted by regular clients who just acknowledge receipt can be tiresome. However, we find that many of our clients actually tell us that we've done a good job for them and that they are grateful which is extremely gratifying.

I feel that giving praise for achievements is important at group level, if only for the sense of accomplishment, but also at individual level: team members need to know that they did something special... and others need to know who did it and is a good source of help for future similar challenges.

Training in the translation technology is also really important for translators. A strategic move for managing a team of translators? Be proactive and include a Language Lead or Trainer in the team: translators feel that their work is valued and their voice is heard as they report to a professional that understands their challenges and share their excitement when they invent a neologism to cover a lexical gap in their target language. They have the opportunity to upgrade their skills, align with new technology trends, and receive all the support they need to achieve high quality levels.