Translation Project Managers oversee translation processes from start to finish, making them essential members of any translation team. To offer guidelines and ensure successful outcomes, they need to have soft skills and technical abilities, as well as experience in managing teams and coping with stress. This mix of skills allows a project manager to anticipate problems and prevent undesirable outcomes.
Here are the 5 essential skills we consider a Translation project manager must possess:
- Planning and organising
Planning is essential for this job, as it impacts the outcome of any project directly. PMs make sure that the team reaches every milestone in time and without going over the agreed-upon budget. For this to happen, they need to be organized and have excellent time management skills.
Project Managers define and provide the project plan. If their instructions are not clear, linguists might work chaotically and deliver inaccurate translations.
A manager who maintains order is more likely to keep the entire team on track, following protocols and respecting discussed standards. In the long run, an organized Translation Project Manager can help streamline operations and speed up translation.
- Effective communication
Project management is a series of processes that involve balancing multiple elements and bringing people together with different cultural backgrounds. It also includes special attention to how information moves across departments to reach every team member at the right time.
Translation Project Managers should know the ups and downs of teamwork and how to fix any problems when managing multilingual experts. They’re the interface between translators and localization experts and their clients. So, they need strong communication skills to make sure everyone understands their role inside the team.
- Relationship management
Building relationships is essential in the translation industry. It’s easy to overcome language and cultural barriers when people know they can rely on each other.
A company can collaborate for years with the same language service provider, and this relationship ensures a unique brand voice across multiple languages. Linguists and clients know what to expect every time they start a new project and work better, in a more relaxed environment.
- Technical knowledge
Translation projects rely on devices and software to reach successful outcomes. Linguists and Project Managers use project management tools, CAT tools, CMS connectors, and other apps to increase consistency and speed up translation processes.
A Project Manager should know what challenges come from using various tools and how to overcome any technical issues that could slow translators down.
- Problem solving and risk management
A great deal of a Project Manager’s job comes down to their ability to manage risks.
Time management, the ability to organise and the skill to adapt to changing needs are all high-level skills that a good project manager can’t be without. But the ability to identify potential risks and put processes in place for how you are going to manage them is something which really sets a so-so project manager apart from an exceptional one. Because the sooner that issues can be caught, the sooner they can be resolved. The longer an issue goes without being resolved, the more likely it is to start affecting budgets and schedules and call the delivery deadline of a project into question.
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