Team projects: pleasures and pitfalls

Having established that only two attendees had not worked on a team project before, Sandra began by asking what sort of pitfalls the others had encountered. Answers included a lack of communication, failure to meet deadlines, scope creep and terminology issues. She then told us that the pleasures and pitfalls of collaboration fell into two categories: relationships and procedures.

In terms of relationships within the team, transparency is key, especially about money and decision-making. All team members, including the project manager, need to know exactly where they stand and feel comfortable asking questions. They need to be involved from the bid stage onwards and be open to suggestions. A phone or video call is very useful to iron out any potential issues and build trust. Information, which needs to be clear and in writing, can be shared by uploading it to the cloud. The person taking on the role of project manager communicates with the end client, where ideally there would also be a single point of contact.

Once it has been ascertained that the project lends itself to teamwork, the project manager needs to assemble a team of people with the right skill set. To minimize risk, it’s advisable to first work on a small project with anyone new to the team and also to include one team member more than the bare minimum in case somebody has to drop out for any reason.

There are several different ways to handle a project and it’s important to be clear about who is responsible for what. Who’s translating and who’s editing? What does editing actually involve? Are they proofreading, improving the style or checking for consistency? What does the review stage involve? If the team is working on a single text that has been split between several translators, it’s usually preferable to have one editor. If, on the other hand, there are several texts for, say, an exhibition catalogue, several editors could be involved. For managing technology, Sandra put forward three options: an Excel sheet in the cloud, a shared translation memory or term base, or specialist translation memory software for groups, specifying that she had no experience of the last-named. Regardless of the technology used, a procedure for making terminology decisions is essential.

The project manager assembles the team and coordinates the bid, which goes back and forth between team members until everyone is happy. The bid itself should include the services to be provided, a list of project management tasks and a short paragraph about each team member and their role in the project. It should also stipulate the contractual relationship, ideally with each member invoicing separately rather than one member subcontracting. And it should mention that it was approved by all involved.

Sandra shared with us an example of a spreadsheet for assigning work, with columns for individual members to enter the volume/chapters they are willing to take on. If possible, everyone should be allocated their preferences and not have to translate anything they don’t want to. She also shared an example of a spreadsheet for monitoring progress in which she logged when the translations were received, sent on to the editor and then delivered to the end client. A third spreadsheet was used for everyone to log their availability.

The main takeaways from Sandra’s excellent talk were that communication and transparency are key. Roles and procedures must be clearly defined and all team members should be involved in drafting the bid. The project manager will assign the work, track progress, communicate with the client and troubleshoot immediately if the need arises. Finally, the spreadsheets she shared would be a useful tool for any collaboration project.

This METM24 was chronicled by Alison Hughes.

Featured photo courtesy of MET.