Introduction to Localization and Project Management | Andrej Zito | Skillshare

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Introduction to Localization and Project Management

teacher avatar Andrej Zito, I teach to create a world without degree

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction & Course Overview

      0:56

    • 2.

      Why The World Needs Localization

      8:17

    • 3.

      Localization Industry Overview

      7:58

    • 4.

      What Is A Project

      6:42

    • 5.

      Project Management Triangle

      5:23

    • 6.

      Your Role As A Project Manager

      7:19

    • 7.

      What Makes A Good Project Manager

      5:49

    • 8.

      Project Manager As Part Of A Team

      5:17

    • 9.

      How Does A PM Interact With VM?

      8:13

    • 10.

      What's Next For You?

      1:25

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About This Class

Are you interested in localization and project management? In this free mini-course, you'll learn the basics of the industry, what a PM does, and what skills are important for the role.

What you'll learn in this course:

  • Why localization is essential in today's world

  • Overview of the localization industry

  • What type of LSPs we have

  • What is a project

  • What is a PM triangle

  • What does a localization project manager do

  • What skills are important for a good project manager

  • What roles does a localization project manager interact with

  • How does a PM interact with VM

FAQ

Do I need any prior knowledge to complete the course?

Nope, you don't need to have any experience with localization or project management. I’ll teach you everything you need to know from scratch. All you need is a computer, a good Internet connection… and some good coffee helps too!

What is the course format?

You'll encounter structured video lessons to follow.

We also have a community platform on Discord where you can engage with other students and instructors.

I’m working or studying. Will I have time for this?

Absolutely. The course is fully self-paced, so you can take as much time as you need to get through the lessons. There's no expiration date on your access to the course.

Meet Your Teacher

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Andrej Zito

I teach to create a world without degree

Teacher
Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Introduction & Course Overview: My name is Andre Sito and I'm the founder of localization Academy. And that will also be your instructor throughout this course. What you're going to get in day one is pretty much introduction to localization. Why? I think localization is important to the world and some basics about how the industry operates. And then I'm going to share with you my perspective on project management. What I think it's about and what I think makes a good project manager in my opinion, they want is here to get you into the zone and understand the bigger picture. So there are no assignments in day one. It's, let's say the most theoretical module out of the hole course. So I hope that you will still enjoy it and learn something about localization and project management. So thank you for watching this introduction to delocalization project manager course, and I'll see you in the next lesson. 2. Why The World Needs Localization: Before we get any deeper into localization and project management specifically, I want you first to observe the world and when you do understand how it functions. And I want you to see the big picture because localization really fits into this big picture and helps the world function as it is. A great example I can give you is iPhone. Iphone is created by smart people at Apple, located somewhere in the United States. They think about the features, the design, the packaging, the website, the text, that should speak, and sell the iPhone to the customers. Then the phone is actually manufactured in China due to lower costs. And from China, it is shipped to every part of the world where there is demand for iPhones, where people want to buy and enjoy iPhones. This phenomenon is called globalization. So companies are no longer constrained by the borders of the country. They don't have to set up offices in every part of the world. They don't have to create the iPhones in every country. They just think about it in one place. In the United States. They haven't manufactured in China. And from China, it goes to all the stores around the world where people can buy iPhones. Now the problem is that if you are in Japan or if you are in France, people in Brazil, they don't want to use iPhone in English. Most of them probably don't even understand English. And even if they did understand English, they probably would prefer to use something that speaks to them in their own language. So the smart people in the United States at Apple's HQ who thought of the features and design. They created it using their native language. But iPhone reaches the customers in their own language. So if you are in Japan, you want to use iPhone in Japanese, you wanted to package to speak to you in Japanese because if it's in English, you wouldn't even understand what the new features are about. You just see some nice package. Iphone, okay, It's a very nice, pretty product, but that wouldn't be enough. People want to use the product using their own language. And this is done through localization, through the process of localization. So we have one product that is created in one location, in one language, and then we adapt this product to different languages. So did the people around the world. They feel like the product was created for them in their own language. More sophisticated and maybe more interesting example could be McDonald's burgers. If you ever traveled outside of your country to maybe a more exotic place and you visited local McDonald's there. You could have find, you can have found some special burgers that are not sold anywhere in the world or at least in your home country. I can give you example for, let's say Japan. If you visit the Japan, you might have scene on the menu. Let's say somewhere I are teriyaki burgers. So the principle here is the same. So McDonald's is saying selling, for example, Big Mac, every where in the world. But in this case with the sum right and teriyaki burger, they wanted to create something local which feels local. The big global chain like McDonald's has created something very local specific for the Japanese people, for the Japanese customers. So they edit some local ingredients, may be fine tune the flavors to it, more to Japanese costumers, to Japanese audience. And then they're selling it there. So the Japanese people feel again like McDonald's has something done specifically for them. Based on their cultural traditions, based on their preferences, based on their flavors and taste. Similar example could be maybe in South America, if you have the burgers, instead of using teriyaki or somewhere I burgers, you would have maybe burgers with more salsa or with guacamole. So again, McDonald's would adapt the typical big mag or other standard burgers to cater to the South American flavors and taste by adding these local ingredients. So this way, the big brands like McDonald's that's selling burgers everywhere around the world has done something for the local people. So they feel like McDonald's has created something only for them. Again, this is a more sophisticated process of localization. Localization basically means adapting product or service to a local audience so that the people in different country, in different markets around the world, they feel like their product has been created to them. It speaks to them in their own language. Now you as future project managers, will not be probably having that much fun designing the new big bag. But the principle is the same. I gave you two examples of iPhone and a burger. But really if you look around your room and the things that you're using on every day. There's localization everywhere, whether it's your laptop or your PC, your phone, your camera, your furniture. If you have furniture from Ikea, for example, all the different software that we use on a computer. If there is a way for you to change the language, that means there's localization behind it. So localization, unless something changes the world. And again, you need to, first of all see that the world is a global place right now. Like there are no boundaries. Like it's very easy to connect with someone and use someone else's product if this thing changes and probably one chain because it's more, the trend is more towards collaboration. And if this keeps going on, there will be localization needed all the time. Because We're localization basically means is if somebody has great idea, great product, or service somewhere in the world, the first startup, they think about it in their own native language, let's say English. But then once the product is really great, they wanna give this value to everyone around the world. So that's where localization comes and helps get this product to every part of the world. So localization is definitely not going anywhere. And this is one of the reasons why companies need localization from the economic perspective, the reason why companies are creative is to generate profit. Company has created something good and they started selling it in, let's say, within the United States or Canada, where people understand English, it's their main primary language. Once they want our reach customers, let's say Europe. And one day our product to be sold in Germany, in France, in Italy, in the native language of the market, they need localized. So localization basically unlocks the growth potential of a company. And that grow then leads to more profit, which let's say justifies the reason for localization, why companies want to invest in localization. But I don't want you to think about localization only because of money. A lot of the companies exist because they give us something new, something innovative, something valuable. And this innovation, this, this basically new future for us as people wouldn't be possible, wouldn't reach everyone around the world if there was no localization happening. So this is why localization is so important and why localization is pretty much everywhere in the world. 3. Localization Industry Overview: We know that the companies who want to grow, they need to localize your products or services in order to be able to reach the local customers in different markets. Now the question is, who does the localization? Where does the Localization happens? And this is where we need to make a very basic distinction between in-house and outsourcing models. So let me ride. In-house. In-house model means is that the localization is happening within our own company. So I'll give you an example. Let's say we are the SLA. And Tesla creates their website where they sell the electric vehicles in English. Now, Tesla wants to reach customers in Europe and in Asia as well. So they decide they want to localize this website in English in two different languages, like let's say German branch, Italian, and Japanese and Korean. Now, in the in-house model, it means that all the localization, adapting the English website into German, french, Italian, Japanese, Korean. It will be done by the employees of Tesla. So all the localization is happening within their own company. So Tesla doesn't need to work with external company to do the localization for them. That's what the outsourcing model is. In outsourcing model. As I already mentioned, we still have the example of this law. So focused on their website, which is created in English. Now, this law does not want to keep all these different translators as their employees. Because maybe they don't know if they're going to have so much things to translate every month to justify why they would have to pay these translators and monthly salary and keep them on the payroll. So in the outsourcing model, this law only creates the English website. And then they work would accompany or companies called LSPs. Lsb stands for language service provider or localization service provider. And this is a company that focuses on localization because it's their core business. They have a lot of different clients and ask them to localize something. So these guys might actually have German, French, and Italian translators as part of their stuff. Because again, they might have different clients. And these clients, my son might be sending a lot of work. So it makes sense to keep these translators as the stuff. Now to LSP is a provider for Tesla. They do to localization for them. But there are cases where the LSB actually also needs to outsource some of the work because they don't have all the translators in-house. So in this case, German, french, Italian, they would be in-house for the LSP. Lsp does the German, french, Italian localization in-house and then delivers it back to Tesla. But in many cases, the LSB also wants to keep their staff kinda lean. And when it comes to specifically to translation, they mostly work with freelancers. Let's say in our example, the Japanese and Korean would be done by freelancers. So in this case, the localization is again outsourced. So Tesla outsources the localization in the English website into five languages to this LSB and us B decides to do three languages in-house with their employees and to outsource Japanese and Korean, two independent freelancers. So the outsourcing model also works this way. Fy in-house or outsourcing. It's not a term that's specific to localization only it applies to any industry. Just to recap, it means who is doing the work? Are we doing it within our company or our employees doing it? In that case, it's an in-house. Are we asking someone externally? That's outsourcing model? Now one of the reasons why we want to outsource things is in this case, it might be to save money to get the localization Dan cheaper because the employees of Tesla would probably be costing quite a lot rather than asking the LSP to do the localization at better rates. Second thing is, as I already mentioned, the workload on the, let's say create new website every quarter and you only change a few sentences on the website. You don't need to keep people on your staff as translators because they would have nothing to translate. So then you're just wasting money by paying their salary. So if you are outsourcing the localization to an LSP, you only pay every time when you have the need to localize. So that's another reason. The third thing might be the know-how. Because the LSB is a company that specializes in localization, They might help and be a good advisor to Tesla. How to actually do the localization of their website in a more efficient way and do it, do it well. So this is in-house versus outsourcing. As I mentioned, majority of the time, localization happens through the outsourcing model. Now, when it comes to the companies, when it comes to LSPs, we have two types of LSPs. Mov, an SLB, MLB simply stands for multilanguage vendor or multilingual vendor. So these are companies that offer localization services into multiple languages. In the previous example that I showed you, Tesla, it goes to this LSB. And the LSB can cover five different languages, or ten or 2030, whatever. On the contrary, we have SOV, which are typically smaller companies very regional, that are only focusing on one language because SOV stands for single language vendor. So for some reason they decided date, they only want to focus on their own language. And throwback to the outsourcing model. In many cases, the M L of v can actually outsource some of the work to auto SLPs or to freelancers. So it's not a surprise that the LSPs can work with each other on some bigger projects. If the MLB thing is that the SLB is a good partner for one language because they're the ones specializing in the language and they're very proficient in the language. 4. What Is A Project: Finally, let's start talking about project management. Project management FYI is about managing projects data. So maybe we should first talk about what exactly is a project. You can find many fancy definitions of a project on the Internet, but I will give you some real-world examples very shortly. So for now, let me just try to give you what I think are the three main aspects of a project. First of all, project means that we're doing something. Project is a set of activities that need to be done. And once these activities are done, we consider the project to be completed. 5. Project Management Triangle: This is where we left off last time. If you remember, I gave you a real-world example of a project. In this case, we were thinking of a dinner. What exactly needs to happen for the dinner? Either if we're organizing it for our friends or if we do it as a service for someone. So this really is a great illustration of what are the three R's are the three components of a project that we as project managers, need to be always aware of. And these are these are the activities that we're doing or the dinner that we need to know what exactly we're doing Core project. What is the first part? We need to know what exactly we have to do for a project. Then the second part here is when we have to do those things. So that is the timeline, the start and the finish. And a final thing which we haven't covered yet. But it's always there is how much this is going to cost. So if you do this as a service for someone, let's say, let's stay with dinner. If you do this for someone as a service person, the client, we want to know how much it's going to cost for you to organize the dinner. But even if you're just organizing the demon for yourself, you still need to think about the cost, right? If you're going to have a dinner for 20 people, you're going to have to buy a lot more groceries and that's going to come up into your pocket. So it's still going to cost you something. Now, these three things, the what, when and how much have a specific terms when it comes to the project management. Let me write it again. Once. When how much what is referred to as scope? That is the scope of the project. So what are the things that we need to do as part of the project? When that is the time component of a project, and how much that is the cost of a project. Now, these three things are always related to each other. There are interlinked. And we can put it like this. We have a scope here. You have the time here, and we have the cost here. Doesn't matter where exactly this, this thing has a fancy name called PM triangle. You don't need to remember this. But what I need you to remember and to be aware of is that these things always affect each other. So if one thing changes, it has effect on the outer two, always, always. So to give you an example, the scope, let's stick to the dinner. If we are organizing a dinner for two people and suddenly we say, Oh, why don't we can find a friend's. It's going to be 20 people. So it's Cope has increased. We need to cook more meals. Or people, maybe we need to run the bigger place to fit all the 20 people. So what this means is that the time in order to prepare these meals and get everything done might increase as well. So the scope has increased and as a result of time has increased as well. We need more time to get it done. And of course, the cost will increase as well because we need more grocery store, we need to buy more groceries. Maybe we need to hire some extra help to help with the cooking. If you think about the time, let's say on the customer and you're organizing. They didn't for me. And I say, I don't want to wait two weeks for you to organize the dinner. I wanted tomorrow. So what would be the impact of that? How will this affect the R2? So first of all, if you have less time, maybe you cannot do everything that was originally plants. So instead of doing a fancy dinner, maybe I'll just buy you McDonald's and that's easy because that's what I can do within the new reduce time and the cost. If by any chance the scope needs to still stay the same, maybe I need to work my *** off, maybe any extra help. So I'm going to charge more for that. If you want, something can be done faster, more urgently, the cost might go in this way up. So the time goes down, but the cost might go up as a result of that if the scope stays the same. So this is the three components of a project that you need to be constantly aware of. Because projects will keep changing, these parameters will keep changing. Nothing is set in stone and you need to always be able to react and analyze and think about how it affects the other two. So scope, time and cost, always related to each other. They always affect each other. 6. Your Role As A Project Manager: In this lesson, let's finally have a closer look at the role of a Project Manager. What I think is the role of a project manager and how they help the project to be successful, to meet project manager is sort of like a captain of a ship. You have so many people working on the ship making sure that it's running, making sure that the guests are served well. You are there to orchestrate everything together and interact with the guests and make sure that the ship gets to its destination. Ultimately, it's your responsibility. The same thing can be said about projects. Project is basically our ship and our goal is to make sure that successfully gets from start to finish in order to get there, in order to know what the project is about and when things need to happen, we need to first of all, plan. Planning is one of the key things that we do as project managers before the start of the project, before we start doing things. Because without a plan, the project is likely going to fail. Because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Now, when it comes to project, how the project looks like is the project goes through narrow talking about localization project. The project goes through different stages. Stage, you can think about it as a one activity that's happening in a certain part of the project. And then once it's finished, the other activity can start. So in this case, we have a project which starts with a translation, then it goes to a review, and then finally it goes through testing, which is abbreviated SQL, which stands for Quality Assurance. The project goes through these stages and one follows another one. The idea with the project is that the project manager doesn't actually do these things. So for translation, we have translators, people who are professional translators, didn't we have professional reviewers and then we have professional testers. Unless there's a very specific task that can only be carried out by the project manager. Once the project manager plan the project, it's up to other people on the project to get it done. And this is a very simple project with three stages. But imagine that this project is actually done in two languages. So we would have ten translators, we would have henry V worse, and we would have ancestors. So that's already 30 people that are working on this project. And therefore, the role of a project manager is to coordinate these people, to be helpful to them, to make sure that they do their job? Well. The idea is that if the people working on the project can do their job really well and you can trust them. New job will be a lot easier. The real challenge for our project manager is when things go wrong, they go not as planned. And I will get to that later. Now, what you need to understand is that the translators are only interested in the translation part. Most cases they will not even know what's happening afterwards for the translator, the project is just about translation for the reviewer, it's only about the review. So these guys don't care about the rest. It's not their responsibility is your responsibility as a project manager to see the project as a whole, as a set of all these interrelated activities. Now, in many cases, there can be issues. Let's say the translation is delayed or a translator is on vacation. So it is the responsibility of a project manager to adjust to this projects. Many times they don't go as planned. So the good project managers are the ones who can adapt to the changes. That thing to the changes is one of the key responsibilities or project manager. And that's what makes the better project manager stands out, is how they can react to change, is how flexible they are, how they can adjust, and how they can think on a spot. In order to get that, you need to have this big picture vision. I would say. So, like I already mentioned before, you need to see the project as a whole. So not only focus on translation, not focus only on review, but see what is the impact, what happens if translation is late? What will be the impact on the review? What will be the impact on the pastures, and so on. We will learn how to deal with this. So this is the picture. And then of course, the projects, we do the projects or our clients. Now the client doesn't want to deal with indifferent translators, reviewers are testers. The client only wants to deal with one person. And that is the project manager. That is you. The project manager is the main point of contact for the client when it comes to doing project work. Then if there's some new information, it's up to the project manager to distribute the information to the team. But it also works the other way, Let's say the translator or a viewer, they are not sure about the meaning of a certain source string. So they asked the project manager, they don't contact the client directly because like we said, the client doesn't want to deal with 30 different people. So the project manager is there to facilitate this communication. And the project manager is actually in the center of the communication between the client, in-between all the project members that are working on the project. And sometimes the Project Manager can help, can answer the question on their own. And you got to times the project manager has to go back to the client and ask for a question. So these are the key roles that I think. First of all, it's planning, which we will be doing a lot very soon. Then it's communicating and coordinating with team. Because like I said, the actual work is done by other professionals, not the project manager. So the way that the project manager does the project is through communication with other people. Then third one is being able to adjust, to react to changes, and then communicating with the client. You are a good project manager if the client can just relax, send your project and trust you, or that you will deliver on time. Building a trust is one of the important things that happen over time. It's more of an advanced thing when we think about the role of a project manager. But trust this one thing that you can build with your client and you should build it with the client. Because if the client needs to put more effort into making sure that the project gets done, it means you're not doing your job well. Sometimes we do need the help of a client, but the good project managers are the ones who, who do most of the work before they go ask for help the client. 7. What Makes A Good Project Manager: In this lesson, I want to share with you my personal traits that I think are important for good project manager. If you want to stand out, It's good to be able to have the sum of these I think you just need to have. And some of them, I think you can learn by practice and practice and learning. Number one, I would say is self organization. This project managers, you will be dealing with a lot of different people, with a lot of different clients. And all of these people send some information to you. You might be dealing with many, multiple different files into different languages. You can be running multiple projects at the same time. So that's why I think if you know how to clean, how to keep all this information, all these projects tidy, clean so that you can easily find what you're looking for. So your self-organized that I think is a very good prerequisite to be a good project manager. Because if you can organize yourself well, then it means you can probably organize other people easily. But if you like mass, if you like chaos, then you're going to struggle with project management. Because project management is also about making decisions based on the information. So you need to be on top of the information, all the information that has been passed onto you. Number two, I would say is communication. Of course. We already talked about the fact that the projects are not done by you as a project manager, you work with many different people and they are the ones who work on the task. They are the ones who deliver the little parts of the project. So in order for us to get it done, we need to communicate with these people. That's how a project manager gets a project done by communicating with the people who can do the job better than us. So we work with experts like translators, engineers, DDP, people, gestures, and so on. And we do it is through communication. Then the next level is communicating with the client, making sure that the client feels they are being served well, that there are understood, that we ask and communicate in a nice professional way. And the same goes for actually working with anyone. So communication is the way how we get things done through communication. Number three, I would say is medium picture. And I'll explain to you what I mean by medium picture and why it's at a big picture. Let me start by saying what I consider a small picture. In many different cases, you can have translators or engineers who have moved to the rank of a project manager. But there are still too much attached and focus on that one part of the project which they have so much experience in. So for example, a translator who has moved to a project management role would be checking in the translation quality too much while neglecting the outer parts of the project. So as a project manager, we need to look at the project as a whole and see how each part, how each task affects the others. At the end, the outcome is positive and the project is successful. If we are too much for QC from micro-managing one part of the project, but ignoring the outer parts of the project, then it means we are not working on the project correctly. Then the opposite end of the spectrum is big picture. And what I consider the big picture is really going beyond the project. Understanding why client wants to localize something. Who is the actual end user of what we're localizing. For example, the people who are using the iPhones instead of the Program Manager at Apple who gives us work. Okay, so it's understanding the product, understanding how the product helps the world. What is the culture of the client being really like? High level and understanding the work that we do and how it helps to impact the world. Because through that, you can become more of a collaborator like a team member with your client instead of just being a client and somebody who does projects for them, then in the middle is what we have the medium picture. And so that to me is somewhere between, so you don't see the project and localization as art of the big picture, the world, how the world works, how it affects the world. But you're also in that micro-managing and you're not too focused on one certain part of a project. So medium picture means that you view the project as a set of interrelated tasks that affect each other. And you can prioritize correctly and you can work with it, and you can make sure that the project moves smoothly. And now finally, the new thing, which I added based on my experience from the very first boot camp is numbers. There are so many numbers that we deal with as project managers, whether it's the budget, we need to calculate the word count, but the dollar value amount of it on top of it, project managers are responsible for the finances of the project. And then when it comes to scheduling, when are people doing something? How long does it take? That's also all. Everything is numbers. So we deal a lot with numbers. So if by any chance, you are scared by numbers and you don't want to deal with numbers. And unfortunately, I think that project management will not be for you because we deal a lot with numbers. The mat behind the numbers is very simple. But you should be good with numbers. 8. Project Manager As Part Of A Team: Now let's talk about the different type of people that you'll be working with as project managers or the different roles that you can come across with. First of all, we've talked about translators and reviewers. So these are language professionals. So they are the ones doing translation and doing linguistic review. Then you can have next is localization engineers abbreviate S, L, E. So these are the technical experts who sometimes for a more complex projects, you might need their help in order to prepare the files for translation. Let's say when we have some DTP heavy files or you have a website which needs to be localized. There will be more sophisticated process in order to start a translation of the website. And this is where the localization engineer would be helpful to you. One type of localization engineer could be DTP engineer, and DTP stands for desktop publishing. And what this means is these are people who basically make things pretty. Think about having some brochures or PDF files which have a nice layout. And usually after the translation is completed, the layout is completely broken. The texts are overlapping, that it's not very nice. So the DTP people come in and they use tools like Adobe design or frame acre, and they make things back to pretty. Sometimes you can also have the DTP engineer working on something related to website. Or usually there's some graphics or nice fonts involved. Then we have QA people, you're already talked about it. So QA stands for Quality Assurance. These are basically testers. So typically when we have localization of software or website, once you translate the website, you want to make sure that it's still functional, that everything is working fine and links are fine, the images are fine. So that's when you would send that to a tester. Or for example, if the B2B person and create some PDF, you might want to have it checked by a tester who is native to that language or understanding language and can quickly review and look at the formatting and say if it's correct. So these are QA people, testers. Then another role that we have is a vendor management. So VM vendor managers are the people who are responsible for dealing with the external people that we're working with. So, for example, translators and reviewers in most cases are freelancers. So the role of the vendor management is to recruit these external people, to test them, and to make sure that the project manager, when the project manager hasn't need to use a certain translator, let's say we're starting a new exotic language, let's say Thai translation. The vendor manager is the person who would be looking for Thai translators. And the vendor manager is also responsible maybe for payments to the people and some escalating issues. Then we have sales or account managers. So this could be two different roles. Salespeople are, of course, the people who are out there trying to find new clients. They're selling the services and they're bringing new projects for us to work on. An account. Managers are sometimes salespeople, sometimes they are very experienced project managers. These are the people who will be working on very large programs for significant clients. I'll give you an example. Let's say the client is Facebook. Facebook is a big, big company and they have multiple products. Like let's say that the Messenger, instagram. And they have, I don't know, the Facebook feed on its own. So these are big products on their own. So if there were localized and we are working here in this company. So this is the LSP. The Facebook Messenger would be localized by one P M here. Then maybe Instagram by another beam or team of PMs. And the Facebook by Anna PM. The role of the manager is actually to be somewhere here. And dealing with someone on the Facebook site. Typically a localization manager who would then also be overseeing all the localization on the Facebook side. So one person from the LSB, one person from Facebook. This is really like the high level discussion, n, sales management. And then finally we have some managers. So people who are mostly interested in having their employees be successful. 9. How Does A PM Interact With VM?: One of the questions that I recently received in one of the boot camps is to further, or maybe better explain how does the vendor manager interact with Project Manager? What is their relationship? So as you know, project managers are dare to utilize the talent of other people who are, let's say better linguists translated as reviewers or better. I don't know the TPP, but localization engineers and so on. So when it comes to finding this talent that is outside of our company. So the external partners, freelancers or other agencies. The role and the goal of finding these external partners that you as a project manager can work with is the role of a vendor manager. Okay, so anyone that's outside of your company that you're working with. So typically freelancers for all the different languages, right? Most of the companies don't actually employ in-house translators. They outsource that work. They have a pool of vendors that they work with that you as a project manager, send your request to. So that's the role of a vendor manager to find the right people that will be willing to work with your company. And then you as a project manager can send them your projects. Okay? So normally when you join a company, unless you're joining a very, very fresh company, they will already have some vendor database. This is all list of all the vendors that are working with your company. The vendor manager has negotiated the rates. The rates are in their system. So how much we're paying for the freelancers, for the vendor. So freelancers and agencies, how much we're paying for their services, for which languages with kind of services they do. And maybe the system also includes something like rating system in the more advanced competence, I would say because you can have different experience with the vendors. Okay. Just because somebody pass the initial test and they become onboarded and became part of the vendor database. It doesn't mean that they actually stayed there for, right? If they underperform, then they can also be removed from the vendor database and then you wouldn't send them any projects any longer because they're not actually good vendors. So how does the interaction work with? First of all, if you get a new request for for new language, let's say you only do, I don't know European languages for your client. And suddenly the client asks you, Hey, by the way, can you also do Japanese, Korean, and simplified and traditional Chinese? Then this is where you might want to consult with the vendor manager. First. First of all, maybe you would look into the database, but maybe it's better to discuss with the vendor manager and tell them that, okay, what kind of clients you have, what is their industry? What kind of content-based send and see if they can help you find the right people that the company has already onboarded. So the vendors that we're already working with, but you just haven't worked with them yet for this project or for this client. Or in case when you really need someone special, let's say, I don't know, your company always does. I don't know IT or marketing translations. And suddenly somebody comes to you with a gaming project. For gaming, you really need someone who has experience with the gaming industry and knows the gaming jargon and is maybe a gamer themselves because gamers are better translators for games than just normal professional translators who have never played a game. So that's when you might want to come to your vendor manager and say, Hey, I have this new project coming in. I need you to find me some people for these languages. Maybe this will be the rates that we're looking at. And then they go and try to hire the people. When I mean hire the people, it means kinda like recruit them to become contractors, okay. They're not hiring the best employees. If we're talking about having in-house linguist, that's I think would be that would be probably the role of your typical HR HR recruiters who are looking to hire internal employees versus hiring looking for contractors. That's rollover vendor manager. So that it would be one instance where you will interact with the vendor manager in case you meet someone. And another example could be that I already mentioned to you. The vendor manager, is there, their role is there to also monitor the performance of the vendors. Did the vendor manager hired in the first place? And so for debt, they would need your feedback because the vendor manager. When they find someone, they probably give them some tests. Then they negotiate the rate and then they're added to the system. But like I mentioned to you, a lot of the times the initial tests can say, can be very positive, very good. And you think that these vendors will work. But once the production people, so you as a project manager start working with people, maybe we'll find out that their communication lags, they are laid with their deliveries and so on. So ideally you want to have some sort of a mechanism, how you as a project manager can enter your experience with the vendors into some system where kinda like aggregates so that not only you but also other different project managers submit their feedback. And then the manager, vendor managers should be monitoring all this feedback and evaluate if the vendors are doing their job well or if there are underperforming, can either underperforming, maybe they might want to reach to you as course of details. Or if there are some really serious issues, I don't know some quality issues. Maybe the client has escalated and report some issues that nobody from team of freelancers, let's say the translator or the reviewer didn't catch. Then maybe they might want to set up some call to clarify these issues, workup, some correction plan with the vendor, and then see if they improve or not. And if they don't improve, maybe that's the time where the vendor manager tells them that, okay, we are not going to work with you anymore. Or maybe sometimes they can do is simply mark them in the system as do not send projects with this person. But they will officially not cease their partnership with this freelancer because maybe they're afraid of some backlash or something like that. So these ethane would be the two main scenarios where you as a project manager would be working with vendor management. Number one case, when you need to find someone you because you as a project manager shouldn't do it. I mean, if you're working for some really, really small company when there's, where there's no, let's say not enough work. Or one dedicated vendor manager. Maybe that's where you as a project manager also need to do some, let's say, searching for talent, searching for freelancers. But in, let's say medium or even larger, smaller or larger companies, you would probably want to have vendor manager to deal with all these freelancers. That is case number one. Number two, when it comes to the performance and rewarding or punishing the vendors. So that is my addition to this lesson. So this is sort of like to give you an extra context in case I miss something. Or it's based on what the students used to ask me, either during the live sessions, during the boot camps or just now through Discord. That's it. 10. What's Next For You?: Alright, that's the end of the free mini-course that I have created. Hopefully you have learned something new about the industry, about the role of a project manager and what I think it's important to have if you want to succeed as a localization project manager. This is all based on my experience working as a PM in the industry for many, many years. So thank you for spending the time with me. Hopefully it was worth it. If you would like to take your training to the next level, if you're really interested in the role of a localization project manager, please come visit localization academy.com, which I started. It's plays where I teach, let's say the full course about becoming a project manager in localization. And that's where you're going to get nine more days of training and you're going to learn everything about doing analysis, calculating, adjusted the word count is creating a budget, making a schedule, and how to communicate and coordinate with your team. So really the basics to give you an idea and a practical idea and experience of how it is to be a localization project manager. So again, thank you for watching this mini-course and hope to see you in our community. Bye bye.