Project management

A project could be defined as ‘a set of related and planned activities, which, upon completion, produce some pre-defined deliverables’ (Arevalillo-Doval 2016: 18).

The scenario of the language service industry in general and of translation in particular has undergone a radical change through the unstoppable technological development, whose implementation in the professional world has led to the emergence of new disciplines and professional specialisations. The image of the isolated translator has become that of a highly specialised professional linguist (or at least they are called so in this industry) capable of undertaking various tasks. Likewise, the increased translatable volumes and the omnipresence of localisation has led to a continuous flow of projects with different professional profiles and an endless series of specialised technological applications.

This current multi-disciplinary nature focuses on one of the most specialised profiles: the project manager. Indeed, project management is a core process in the language industry, since it brings together a huge series of roles that enable the entire translation process flow. This is recognised by the international quality standard for translation services ISO-17100, an industry reference, which lists all the functions of project management in pre-production, production and post-production.

Project management does not take place on its own but depends on numerous factors both internal and external to the company where it takes place. All of these influences impact different management styles in different ways: the processes that take place from the time a customer requests a translation project to the time it is completed and delivered to that customer are exactly the same, but the way they are implemented and performed differs according to the principles and ways of working of each company.

In this article we will cover all these aspects and develop everything that happens in the processes so that readers can have an overview of this whole procedure and the key importance it has in the language industry: a professional profile, and a necessary and vital specialisation for any organisation regardless of its size.