A day in the life of a Localization Project Manager

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a project manager in the localization industry? Well, Kasia Leszczyńska, a Senior Project Manager based in Poland, took time out of her busy schedule to give us a sneak peak into a typical day. Over to you Kasia!

Hello everyone!

My name is Kasia. I come from Poland and I am a long-time localization project manager overlooking a team of seven, comprised of one project manager and six localization engineers.

Although I don’t translate myself, as a project manager I do my best to help linguists and reviewers perform their translation work the best they can. I cooperate with big agencies, small translation companies, and freelancers who not only translate and review the translated content, but also evaluate it and improve it even more. On top of that, they adapt the content to the cultural requirements of their countries, while applying the client’s style to the translated content.

This is challenging when you are not part of the client’s in-house team, but it is not impossible. Looking at how translation teams handle that makes me proud of them and their linguistic skills.

My working day usually starts with a cup of coffee and a quick look at my to-do list, which contains tasks already in progress, tasks which I am not directly involved in but which I need to monitor to oversee my team’s work, and tasks to be kicked off according to their schedule. I check the ongoing projects and any new requests from the client, coordinating with the production team who either send them to DTP pre- or post-processing, launch the translation, trigger the linguistic review, or deliver them back to the client.

My priority is always to keep good communication going between the linguists and the production team, together with a timely delivery to the client. This can be best achieved by proper project preparation, timely task ordering, keeping the linguists informed, and always being responsive and supportive.

It is said that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. This is somewhat true but, even if you plan properly, there might be unexpected turns of events that will impact your final project result. This is where I step in to make sure that, despite the obstacles, we as a team keep all the parties informed about the situation at hand, suggest possible solutions, and try to minimize any negative impact. I always appreciate when teams flag issues early enough, when they predict potential negative scenarios and propose solutions. Only then can we make a challenging situation easier to remedy.

Vendor financials and project automation are two specific areas in project management that are a top priority of mine. Vendor financials mainly involves making timely payments to suppliers for the work done and answering their payment-related questions. Project automation, meanwhile, is about streamlining our daily processes to reduce manual effort. I still remember the times when CAT tools were not in common use and files had to be zipped, shared via FTP, and translated offline without TMs or glossaries.

Fortunately, those times are gone, but this doesn’t mean that you cannot automate processes even more. All the above-mentioned efforts wouldn’t be possible without the involvement of other teams like the Vendor Management Team, the Linguistic Services Team or the Development Team. I work closely together with the Vendor Management Team who recommend new linguists, manage external agreements and help us to solve vendor-related challenges like unresponsiveness or urgent sourcing requests. I also cooperate with the Linguistic Services Team who monitor the linguistic quality, train new linguists, and help to improve translator performance in case this is not satisfactory. 

And then there’s the Development Team, who convert my automation wishes, or the so-called ‘magic’ into reality. Project management all comes down to keeping an eye on the wellbeing of the entire account localization programme, which was designed together with the client. I monitor project on-time delivery and keep the linguists informed about their performance. If needed, I offer support to improve their timely delivery. 

Tracking task deadline extension requests and task rejections is also important to check whether linguists feel comfortable with the assigned volumes and to understand if it is high time to expand the team to handle more volume. I also care about the production team – my closest colleagues who support me every day and know how to make my day.

Being a project manager brings me a lot of joy and satisfaction and I wouldn’t change it for anything.