Improving Effectiveness of Multi-Location Teams - How do you know they’re working? Tom Connolly, Itac Enterprises
Today, many teams are distributed throughout the world. Sharing a common place of work with all one’s co-workers and managers seems to be the exception rather than the rule. New management processes and practices have evolved to deal with this new reality. New technologies have enabled distributed resources to collaborate much more easily.
However, how is team effectiveness maintained in this environment? If you’re a manager, how do you know your team is working well? If you have a manager, how do you know if you’re delivering exactly what he or she wants? If you depend on peers, how can you ensure that you get and give deliverables at the right time in the right way? Maybe “the system” will take care of it all (once the bugs have been cleared up)? If you have a system that works, are you using it as effectively as possible?
This workshop was developed to address these issues, and it proposes a simple framework that attendees can begin to apply immediately. The workshop is run in an interactive energetic mode, with a high level of focus on “learning by doing” and learning from each other.
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Module 1 Starting
Introduction and background
- Who am I?
- Who are you?
- How much experience do we have in management of multi-located teams?
- What are the biggest issues you have?
- We will write these down and address them during the day
Goal(s) setting
- Definition and importance of goals
- Examples of results of bad goal setting
- How “Own goals” hurt your team
- Examples from workshop participants
Communicating the goal (s)
- What is communication?
- What tools can we use? Examples of tools available today
- The best way to communicate
Module 2 Doing
Activating the Team
- Who is who?
- Agreeing and understanding (takes time)
Monitoring activities
- How?
- How often?
- Reporting – how to do it
- Workflow management tools
- Dashboards
- Emails
- Conference calls
- Deliverable based
- Inspection
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Course-correcting
- “
Houston
we have a problem”
- What to do
- Who to tell
- When to tell
- How to tell
Module 3 Finishing
Maintaining understanding of the goal(s)
- Data vs information
- Context of team members
- Multiple activities
- Multiple “masters”
- Change is the only constant
Achieving the goal(s)
- How do you know?
- Who to tell, how to tell?
Module 4 Improving
Reviewing
- What is the point?
- Making the time
- How and What to review
Improving
- How can we improve
- Actions not excuses
- “Fool me once…”
- Root cause analysis
- Structure vs Behaviour
- Infrastructure vs Performance
- Monitored vs unfettered
- Metrics
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Translation Environment Technology
Juliet Macan, IcDoc
The first attempts to use technology for "translation" derive from ciphering, where the aim was not to make the information available to a wider audience, in other languages, but on the contrary to protect it from unauthorised access. Research into machine translation, terminology and technology, that made widely available personal computers and then internet, have completely changed not just the way we communicate and authors and translators work but also the entire supply and demand for translation.
Challenges: content vehicles, source design, source and target languages, large volumes, limited resources, narrow timescales.
Solutions: authoring technology, content management, terminology management, translation management systems, translation memory tools and quality control tools.
Investments: The benefits of TMs or MT depend on a greater awareness and investment upstream, but also on skilled personnel and training.
This workshop will offer a survey of the various tools available that can make the process more efficient. These tools will include Translation Memory and Terminology Management and Quality Assurance systems. A closer look will be given to the problems involved and the skills required to ensure the process runs smoothly.
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1. What are we talking about?
Language and communication: a few definitions and brief introduction of the various participants.
Why are we here?
2. Who are the players involved?
- Customers,
- technical writers,
- software engineers,
- LSPs,
- translators,
- reviewers,
- DTP specialists,
- software vendors.
What do they expect?
3. Where's the catch?
- Content vehicles,
- source design,
- source and target languages,
- large volumes,
- limited resources,
- narrow timescales.
How do we deal with this?
4. When can technology lend a hand?
- Authoring technology,
- content management,
- analysis and metrics
- terminology management,
- translation management systems,
- translation memory tools,
- quality control tools,
- machine translation engines.
How can we bring the current counting standards up to date?
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5. Which tool and why?
Preparing the menu:
- File format filters
- Analysis features – what can we count
- Terminology support
- Languages
- Interfaces
- Scalability
- User friendliness
- Checking features
- "Open" or "Closed" system
- Support record
What do we need in the check-list?
6. Why do we need LSPs?
Coordination and economies of scale:
- expert, skilled personnel,
- hardware and software,
- customer support,
- translator support,
- language know-how banks.
- Alignment of widely different needs with innovative solutions.
How does this compare with machine translation and cloud sourcing?
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Management Development Training
Eszter Avar and Loránd Kis-Tamás, Corporate Values Consultancy Ltd.
"I would like my company to work like clockwork. But we are far from it at the moment. Tasks get forgotten. Deadlines are often not met. Employees just don't seem to do things the way I would like them to. But I can't be there all the time. I am overworked as it is, and I haven't got time to think about the big picture. I am so consumed by everyday minor tasks."
If these problems sound familiar to you then come to our training. There, we will help you to make your company work more smoothly and more manageably.
We are believers in experiential learning - there will be no lectures and long talks about theory. Instead, participants can try themselves out in simulation exercises which provide good models of the managerial aspects within an organisation. The exercises lead to detailed discussion and analysis, during which trainers and participants share best management practices and generate new ideas that you can implement in your own business straightaway.
We recommend our training to all of those who believe that their business could work better.
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Topics of the training course
During the last few weeks, we have conducted interviews with ELIA members, asking them about their biggest challenges and dilemmas as managers of their own companies. The responses fell into four categories.
- People management: how to keep talented employees; how to motivate and improve them so they can do an excellent job.
- Process management: how to ensure that workflow is smooth, so that everyone knows what to do without the managers having to check all the time; how best to avoid mistakes and delays.
- Customers: knowing what customers really want; why they chose one company over another; how to retain customers and attract new customers, even when the economy is not doing very well.
- Finances: how to stabilise cashflow; how to make a project more profitable.
The focus of our training course is to explore these four areas and their relaionship with one another through a series of practical tasks.
Methodology:
- A business simulation exercise, from which participants will be able obain new ideas about how they can manage their own company better.
- The exercise provides an excellent and realistic model of a company, which includes the abovementioned four managerial aspects, ie. people, processes, customers and finances. Participants will be able to experience how closely these four dimensions of management are interlinked.
- The exercise consists of several rounds (several “producing years”). Participants act together as a team of managers and employees of the model company. In every round (a “new year”), participants have the opportunity to try to improve the performance of their model company.
- The team’s performance is measured after every new producing year in four dimensions (profit, customers, processes, people). This gives participants the opportunity to analyse their own performance and to reorganise their model company in order to perform better.
- Detailed discussions in small groups follow the exercise. Practical conclusions are drawn about the planning and implementation of organisational strategy, the importance of processes, the roles and responsibilities in a company; about continuous improvement of strategic areas, employee satisfaction etc.
- Personal action plans.
- The aim of the exercise is to put the findings of the simulation exercise into practice and answer the question: how can all of this be applied for my own company?
- Each participant will develop a personal action plan with the help of trainers and other participants, which focuses on their own management issues.
- Self-assessment questionnaire
- Participants can complete a questionnaire focusing on several aspects of management of an organisation (optional).
- The questionnaire is self-evaluated. Results can be discussed during the training course so that participants get feedback on strengths and weaknesses of their organisation, and on their own managerial strengths and weaknesses.
- Resources
- Participants on the training course will receive management resources and practical tools (printed and on-line) to support them in putting newly aquired knowledge into practice.
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Localization Project Management - Make it clear, keep it simple, make it happen
Tom Connolly, Itac Enterprises
This two-day workshop takes participants through a robust practical process for managing localization projects in a simple and effective way. The focus is on simple messages and techniques so that participants can improve their project management performance as soon as they return to the workplace. The sessions are run in an interactive manner and cognisance will be taken of the expressed needs of participants on the day. A significant part of the two days will be spent planning an actual project. Participants are encouraged to bring some of their own current projects, which can be reviewed during the final session. The workshop finishes with a unique time management module based on the work and life experience of the instructor.
A feature of the workshop is the “Lesson Learned” section which summarises the key points and learnings at the end of each module.
The workshop has been delivered in public and in-company settings to many blue-chip clients since 2001 in Ireland, Germany, Finland, Spain and Holland.
The timings of the modules are approximate and used only as guidelines.
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Day One
Mission (60 mins)
- What is to be done?
- When will it be finished?
- Who cares?
- How do they ask you?
- How do you commit?
- Do you commit?
- Lessons Learned
Process and Tools (60 mins)
- What process does your company use?
- What tools can you use?
- What tools should you use?
- Lessons Learned
Planning (90 mins)
- Scheduling techniques Contingency
- Risk analysis - The theory/The reality
- Budgetting
- Lessons Learned
Team (60 mins)
- Knowing your team
- Getting them to do things
- How work gets done
- Multiple projects and shared resources
- Lessons Learned
Communication (60 mins)
- Basics of communication
- Tools used today
- Communication within team
- Communication outside team
- Lessons Learned
What if? And what could have been (60 mins)
- The best laid plans
- Re-planning. Responding to new requests
- Adding new projects
- Re-budgeting. Project reviews
- Lessons Learned
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Day Two
Group exercise (2 hours)
- So far. The first fifteen - twenty minutes of this session is a re-cap of the first day, focussing on the Lessons Learned sections.
- Now the attendees get to work.
- A sample project is explained by the instructor, or attendees work on real life projects they have brought to the workshop.
- Sheets are provided as templates to those who need ain hard and soft copy.
- People may work individually or in groups.
- The required result is a complete project plan, capable of being presented at a management review. Schedule, resourcing plan and budget are required.
Project Presentation and Group Discussion (2-3 hours)
- What did we really learn?The course can facilitate up to 6 groups. The instructor asks each group in turn to describe the progress in their project, and to highlight issues they had or problems they encountered. Each group's plan is critiqued by the instructor, with good practice and bad practice commented upon. The floor is then open to attendees to ask questions. Attendees are encouraged to write down what they have learned and what they are going to do differently as a result.
Time Management (1 to 1.5 hours)
- "Manage your time - save your life."
- A unique time management approach developed over 28 years of work and life experience.
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