3 effective strategies for managing a translation team

The challenges of managing an internal translation team are often overlooked by senior management, not least because translation and localization are often seen as a simple, straightforward function. In practice, there are a lot of considerations going into managing a productive translation team.

Based on our experience, below are three effective strategies for managing a translation team:

Use Native Speakers, Always

It is a necessity that the translators at your team are native speakers of the target language. The ability to speak the target language fluently not only affects the efficiency of the translation turnaround, it also goes to the root of the quality of translation output from such translators. Non-native translators often lack both comprehensive knowledge of idioms and usage and a deep understanding of the dynamics of the target language market itself.

If possible, your team should also include translators who are not only native speakers of the target language but who also have extensive living experience in the source language market.

Design the Workflow

It is important to design the operation workflow of your translation and localization so as to optimize the process. Elements of the workflow would typically include: job assignment and allocation, progress tracking, glossary management, content recycling, translation memory management, turnaround estimate, method of delivery, file format, communication channels etc.

For medium to large translation teams, it is also ideal to have a translation manager in charge of supervising the workflow and take on the role of project manager.

Build Feedback Loops

Far from being one-off tasks, the translation and localization function is a continuous one that involves on-going improvement aiming at more effective communications. This is especially important for the localization of content that is intended for marketing and client engagement, where the choice of target text will have a direct impact on the effectiveness of such campaign.

Make sure you build a system to obtain feedbacks on your audience’s reaction to localized content and incorporate such feedbacks into subsequent translation and localization projects.