Most things work...until they don't. Prioritizing Localization as a Strategic Advantage
I often think that Globalization / Localization teams tend to be small in size compared to the total size of the companies they belong to. The ratios of stakeholders’ vs Localizers are usually very high. At least, in most of the companies that I know, there will be exceptions, I suppose, but I often find colleagues in the industry where the Localization department is ... 1 person or 2 or 3, but they are usually quite small teams .. and in many cases, the department is started by a person (this is typical in startups) and if they are lucky… someone will be hired to help out.
They are small teams, but the responsibility is quite great as they are responsible for delivering the right content for different global users at the right time. They are responsible for contributing to the international growth of the company.
Globalization/Localization teams contribute to the international growth in a company
They have to ensure that the content is useful, that it is well localized, that the language style guides have been applied, that the different terms that have been used are correct, that the app errors or onboarding messages are clear, explanatory, that the content is culturally relevant ... summarizing…. that localized content provides an end-to-end user experience from beginning to end independently of the language/market we are dealing with.
A company is not going to stop asking us for content because we have a small internal team, so the question is….
When your company requires more from you, and demands more services than you can offer… what can we do?
During my career, I have been in very large localization teams (Lionbridge, Microsoft, EA), medium size (King) ... or tiny, Sulake, the Habbo Hotel maker where the Localization team was… well, me.
Working for the Finnish developer Sulake was a very interesting experience. Habbo is a social networking service and online community aimed at teens and young adults
In this post, I am more inspired by that situation lived in Sulake, in which as the only Localization professional within the company I had to unfold to get to everything
* disclaimer this article assumes that you are working with at least one LSP, that is why I focus on internal strategic aspects from the client-side
Below I describe 4 tactics that can help you deliver the localization strategy even when you have/are a small team
Source:@yolocalizo click HERE to download the infographic
Focus on high impact projects
In my case… when I have more than 2-3 priorities, I’m not working effectively. If I have three priorities, my work has a meaning, if I have 10 priorities something goes wrong, I have no priorities, I have a chaotic life ☺. It took me a while to understand this, and thanks to the law of Vilfredo Pareto gradually I understood it (80% of your results come from 20% of your tasks). I learned to say NO and I learned that if I say NO I’m not saying NO to everything, I’m just working to find the right balance and focus on the important stuff.
Hence the question is how do you identify those high project impacts?
Find your company goals for the year.
Ask yourself: how as a Localization professional I can contribute to those goals?
And …if in your company goals you see words such as “expansion”, “international sales”, “growth”, “increase consumer base”…. That it’s sending you a signal about which are the high project impact. Focus on those!
2.- Prioritization of the projects
In Agile software development, backlog prioritization is an essential activity for any high-performing team designing and developing successful digital products.
During these meeting, we hear about the urgency of aligning priorities to business objectives, and then prioritize both Product and Sprint backlogs.
I have been in many of these meetings where we might have some Localization requests, and these get deprioritized or postpone to the next release as there was not any developer available to work on that requirement as they were busy with something else …
We can get inspired by Agile backlog prioritization and follow the same approach when we are in very small internal localization teams.
We do that by asking our stakeholders to identify and rank the projects needing localization support. This will help them ( and help you )understand where to start and where to focus our energy. Patrick Lencioni the famous writer of business manamgement books expressed this quite well “If everything is important then nothing is”
3.- Nurture the language assets
… so they always are up to date
No matter how busy we are, keeping the style guide and glossaries up to date is crucial. I remember when I was working in Sulake that this task was non-negotiable for me, and every Friday I booked a slot on my calendar from 4-6 pm to review those assets. Style guides need to be maintained and updated. Let’s see why
Style guides are crucial to building our brand message. Every brand has a unique tone of voice. Every brand has its voice, and this voice is explained in a style guide. The style guide will answer questions such as: do we want formal or informal language? Do we prefer active verbs or passive voice?. We need to create detailed style guides using multiple examples and updating the style guide as often as necessary; because languages are living bodies, they evolve and our companies evolve as well.
Glossaries, I cannot stress enough how important to use glossaries is for our industry, we need consistency. Who can remember how a term was translated a few weeks ago? or even a couple of years ago? Glossaries are important as they help to build a stronger brand message
Creating a style guide is a massive effort, but it’s well worth the investment.
4.- What gets measured get managed!
Normally we hear this to obtain KPIs about our productivity ... and in many cases to justify if our level of productivity is adequate ... or if it is low ..., but when you are alone in a localization team, or with 2 other people, what we do by applying this strategy is turning the concept of productivity upside down.
We make it work in our favor.
And how will we do this?
We are going to track all of the requests we receive. This is going to be our pillar to present a business case requesting more resources for our Localization team! It’s one thing to say we are busy … and it’s another different quantify the request we could not take because well … we are alone.
When we quantify and report that we need more people just to cover the business-critical requests then we are on track to get fellow localizers on-board!
5. Sheds light on intangibles
A big part of the work a Localization Professional does is not the translation itself, it’s not even managing the external LSPs or freelancers.
There are very important and very necessary tasks do such as:
Evangelization meetings to align teams
Lunch and learn sessions where you explain Localization best practices
Lightning talks on the company all hand-calls
Presentations in industry events
TMS workflow customization
Conducting/supporting Global User Research
Developing processes
Market research
To make your work and impact tangible, take the time to track the above activities and put all this together in a deck so you can present it when the right opportunity arrives.
IN SUMMARY
The role of an internal localization team (even if it's just 1 person) is crucial to help our company conquer different markets.
To realize about the full impact of your contribution you need to prioritize strategically, you need to learn to quantify, you need to learn to track and document what you (and what you don’t do) and you need to make an effort to speak up, show your work and show your impact, what you do and how you collaborate with others.
At first, it is hard to be alone, it is difficult to prioritize requests and do everything we have to do, but little by little and by implementing the different strategies that I have explained to you in this article we will be able to make our small team grow.
Be patient, one step at a time.
Have a wonderful week
@yolocalizo
Transitioning from one job to another can be an enriching experience, or it can be a nightmare.
I have detected in my different movements, and after seeing many colleagues making transitions, that there are a series of usually effective tips.