Risk Management Basics for Globalization Projects

© 2011 IBM Corporation

Basics of Pro-Active Risk Management

for Globalization Projects

Vanessa Wilburn, PMP®

© 2011 IBM Corporation2 Risk Management for Globalization Projects Vanessa Wilburn

Agenda

Identification (breakout activity)

Analysis

Prioritization

Planning (breakout activity)

Classic mistakes

Trend watch


Identifying Project Risks

Internal and external risks–Internal: Easier to mitigate

• Requirements that change• Errors, omissions, poor estimates, poor communication, or

misunderstandings–External: Hard to control

• Political changes, market changes

Ripple effects from a single risk–Late delivery, cost overruns, schedule shifts, or penalty payments


G11N Project Risks

Unplanned requirements

Changing requirements

Resource issues

Cost overruns

Acquisitions and mergers

Vendor schedules


Name That Risk – Breakout Activity

1. Translation done by vendor done in country?

2. Translation done by vendor done anywhere by vendor?

3. Software G11N is done by product development team?

4. Software G11N is done by external vendor?


Risk Analysis Process

1. Identify risks

2. Prioritize risks– Qualitative methods determine likelihood and impact

of risks.– Quantitative methods determine effect of risk and

assign numerical ratings.


Risk Probability

Low –The event has little chance of occurring.

Medium–The event has some chance of occurring.

High–The event is likely to occur.


Risk Impact

Low–The event has little potential to disrupt the schedule, increase the cost, or degrade performance.

Medium–The event has some potential to disrupt the schedule, increase the cost, or degrade performance.

High–The event is likely to seriously disrupt the schedule, increase the cost, or degrade performance.


Risk Severity MatrixRisk severity is a combination of the probability and the impactof the risk.

MediumMediumLowLow

HighHighMediumMedium

HighHighMediumHigh

HighMediumLow

Pro

babi

lity

Impact


Planning for Project Risks

Risk mitigation–Determine if a risk event is too high, or if there will be serious

consequences–Explore how to bring the risk into an “acceptable” range or

avoidance

Strategies for risks or threats –Avoid. Change the plan to eliminate the threat posed by an

adverse risk, to isolate the project objectives from the risk’s impact, or to relax the objective that is in jeopardy, such as extending the schedule or reducing scope.

–Transfer. Shift the negative impact of a threat, along with ownership of the response, to a third party. Gives another partyresponsibility; does not eliminate risk.

–Mitigate. Reduce the probability and/or impact of an adverse risk event to an acceptable threshold.


Strategies for Positive Risks or Opportunities

Exploit. Ensure that the opportunity is realized.

Share. Allocate ownership to a third party who is best able to capture the opportunity for the benefit of the project.

Enhance. Modifies the “size” of an opportunity by increasing probability and/or positive impacts.


Responding to Risks

Risk plan as response to risks

Corrective actions–Contingency plans–Workarounds for unplanned risks

Preventative actions–Action that reduces the probability of negative consequences of risks

Approved change requests


Planning Exercise – Breakout Activity


G11N Project Risk Example 1

You’ve been working with one vendor on several projects. They are always late in delivering your globalized product by as much as 6 weeks. –What is the probability and impact (risk severity) they will continue this pattern on the next project?

–What can you do to plan for this occurrence?

Write down your responses.



Your G11N vendor has always supplied consistent resources – same people – on your projects, however, the next project will have new people involved. –How can you keep this from happening?–What can you do to ensure consistent quality with potentially new resources involved?




Your new project will add 6 more locales to your product’s existing 5 locales.–How do you determine that your vendor can handle this new increase demand?

–What additional steps will you take to ensure delivery of these language additions?



Classic Mistakes


Process Issues – General

Lack of communication and understanding of the company business direction

Expectation that budget and cost estimates remain static year to year, instead of shrinking due to today’s economic reality

Not verifying the translation in country after it is complete or mostly complete

Delivering too little or too much English text to translation company

– Too much: Pay overtime to meet project schedules– Too little: Lose money on fix-priced contracts with translation group; create ill-

will with translation company because they staffed for larger translation


Process Issues – Technical Education

Erroneous perception that translation = multicultural support. Some issues are not understood as being software issues.

Engineering teams frequently have no knowledge of the basic G11N requirements.

–Example: Incorrect assumptions are made: a text string is always displayed from left to right.

Engineering teams might use the wrong software development tools.

–Software development tools might not have G11N capabilities.–Team doesn’t know that the G11N tools are available in their

software development tools.–No framework in development environment to manage additional

languages and new elements such as message catalogs.


Process Issues – People

People: Structure of organization leads to conflicts.–Functional: Hierarchy is where each employee has one clear supervisor.–Projectized: Groups either report directly to the project manager or provide

support services to the various projects.–Matrix: Structure is a blend of functional and projectized characteristics.

Responsibilities are overlooked and thus are not assigned to an owner. Tasks and deliverables end up missing from the project.

Intermediary (in-country) coordinator does not advise of labor disputes with translation vendor.

–Example: Contract issues with translation vendor are not surfaced back to you, the project manager.

–Example: Intermediary does not inform you that a translator plans to quit in the middle of the translation. (Lose consistency in translation when you switch to another translator, if a translator is even available).


Scope Issues

PM underestimates amount to translate.

PM overlooks aspects that require multicultural support or translation (for example, only books need translation; the online help gets forgotten).

Sizings assumptions are not exposed.

– Does the word count include the reused text?

– Does the word count exclude text that is in the file but doesn’t appear on the screen?

Product relies on other 3rd party software that is not globalized.

– Customer expects all aspects of product to be globalized, not just “base product.”

Requirements definition: who wants what translated for which customer and why

– Team does not fully understand the requirement.

– Ambiguous objectives lead to differing solutions.

Team does not know who the product is for. And nobody is asking.


Schedule Issues

Not accounting for intersections of national holidays and hard dates

– Where translation occurs, for example Asian New Year

– Where English-language product is developed and managed

Not allowing enough time to correct mistakes from G11N testing

– Translated product GUI labels won’t fit.

– Product mishandles dates.

Delivering too late or too early– Translation companies rely on

contractors; contractor schedules are tightly controlled.

– Too early: You pay for contractors even though they have nothing to translate.

– Too late: Contractors no longer available.


Content-Specific Issues

Terminology management– Lack of term management early or

ever– Decentralized teams using multiple

terms or product names for one thing

Too small estimates for word counts

– Writers’ inexperience with estimation – Scope creep– Lack of checkpoints to refine original

estimates

Tooling problems, such as:– Mismatches between authors’

software version and translators’version

– Complex build/transform environments for DITA > HTML

Insufficient time allotted for translation of screen captures (time-consuming)

Help system not enabled for other locales, such as right-to-left languages or searches with non-English character setsCommunity-created content, such as comments

– No translation or MT is insufficient– Culturally-appropriate content

nonexistent/inaccurate (users’expectation for a richer local site than “main” site)

Collaboration translation (aka crowd sourcing)

– Low quality due to poor language skills or technical knowledge

– Lack of translators interested in participating

Name yours!


Trend Watch, a Few Examples

Social–☺ Community-created content already translated and culturally appropriate!– Large volumes of content, faster translation times needed

Mobile – New technologies and delivery processes to learn, scope creep (we’re

doing mobile now?!)

Emerging markets–☺ G11N organizations: growth area– New translators for potentially unusual markets, no translation memory for

new language

Today’s business reality: No resources, no budget, no time

Improved machine translation–☺ Machine translation starting to rival human translated information– Corollary to previous bullet: bean counters consider MT “good enough”


Thanks!

Vanessa Wilburn is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and senior STC member with 16 years of technical communication and project management experience. She has been a project lead, architect, editor, and writer on several IBM products in the Software Group.

As part of a Localization Certification program, she teaches an online course, Localization: Introduction to Project Management, at Austin Community College. Previously, she was part of the marketing team, the developer/webmaster of the company's Web site, writer, and instructional designer.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/vanessa-wilburn/0/417/915

Risk Management Basics for Globalization Projects

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