Discover 5 Awesome Tips for Easy Multilingual Project Management In 2021
Managing a project in a single language can be difficult enough; you can imagine how cumbersome it can get when managing multilingual projects.
You have to make sure that you fulfill the needs of every member of the team, and make sure everyone works together smoothly, without any hassles, misunderstanding, and conflicts.
Any issues that you may have with project management in a single language can often be compounded when you start to spread things across other languages.
For this reason, anyone thinking of taking on multilingual project management should be aware of a few key things before they get started. Putting a solid structure in place can make the difference between success and failure with this kind of work.
What is Multilingual Project Management?
Multilingual project management is when a project is expanded upon and taken into different markets across the world. Because each market functions with its own local language, projects need to be adapted accordingly so that they suit varying demographics.
Examples of projects that are done on a multilingual scale include advertising campaigns, the launching of a service, or the development of a new product. It can also occur when businesses want to scale up and reach new locations.
When businesses embark on multilingual project ventures, they often need to expand their team into other markets that they hadn’t entered before.
It is unlikely that they will have staff members in every single country they want to operate in, though. That often means outsourcing some aspects of project management to external companies.
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Five Golden Tips To Successfully Navigate Multilingual Project Management
1. Use English for Communications Between Team Members
When planning a project, there will be plenty of meetings. If these meetings involve team members from different countries and different markets, there may be disputes over the preferred language of communication.
It should be agreed upon early on that English is used in the planning process, as this is the lingua franca and the most commonly used intermediary language between people from different countries.
Interpreting Services Will Help
With that being said, it is always handy to bring in some interpreting services to smooth discussions between different language speakers. There could always be some things that are lost in translation, and it’s particularly important to avoid this at the planning stage.
Taking the help of professional translators in the meeting allows for things to be clarified. This means that everybody will be properly informed about how the project will be moving forward.
Training All Team Members in English Would Be Beneficial
If multilingual projects are going to be common practice for a firm, it may be wiser to ensure that all team members are highly skilled at speaking English. This is especially true if those other language speakers are living and working in the UK.
Luckily, it is easy to get people the training they need nowadays thanks to online English courses. There are even options that teach English for use in business so that non-natives can communicate using and understand all the technical jargon.
Undergoing this sort of training would help everyone to feel accepted and reduce the risk of misunderstandings. In addition to this, if a particular country has a greater focus than others for a multilingual project, it may help to train the English members of staff in the language of that country as well. This would allow for even smoother interactions between team members, and it could be an excellent way to foster rapport.
2. Consider Cultural Differences
One of the main things to consider when planning a multilingual project is the fact that markets all over the world are going to be different. It is not simply a case of creating an advertising campaign, for example, in English and then translating it into different languages.
Many aspects of that campaign would have to be changed when moving from country to country. For this reason, project managers don’t just have to consider language differences, but they also have to think about cultural differences.
Religious Holidays
An example of this could be to do with religious holidays in any given location. Do people want to be marketed to at these times and, if so, are there any things that project managers should be aware of that need to be avoided? It would be disastrous if the marketing campaign inadvertently offended its target demographic.
With this in mind, managers don’t just need to have an awareness of the various religious holidays, but they also need to know what they are about. For instance, advertising a food product to a predominantly Muslim country in the day during Ramadan would be pointless because much of the population would be fasting at that time. It may even be considered insensitive to show images of food during this period of spiritual enlightenment.
Hire People from Specific Regions for Cultural Insight
One of the ways to achieve an accurate insight into different cultures around the world would be to hire team members from those places. Of course, there is the option to hire members of other nationalities that live in England.
However, if they don’t live in the countries that their part of the project is based in, they may not know all the small nuances that could be better explained by locals.
For example, some countries have siestas at certain points in the day or perhaps traditionally take lunch at an earlier or later time. If a project manager from the UK tried to organize a business meeting during one of these times, it probably wouldn’t go down well with the clients that live in those countries. Other cultural insights could provide a better idea about what the target demographic’s pains and desires are, and this would help to improve any advertising campaigns in the country.
The reasons that a product sells in the UK may be vastly different to why that same thing would sell elsewhere. Different cultures may have diverse motivations for using the same thing.
3. Adapt to Suit the Target Audience
There needs to be a lot of work on adapting multilingual projects to suit the target audience in any given area. This can also be applied to different cities within the same country.
Having knowledge of local dialects would be hugely beneficial when trying to market to people from different places. For example, the language used in Barcelona is unique from that used in Madrid. So simply translating a campaign into Spanish and releasing it to the whole country might not do.
As well as adapting content to diverse demographics in this way, project managers should also ensure that market research is done in every area that the campaign will be released. By collecting detailed information about the target audience, it is much easier to create content that speaks directly to them.
4. Multilingual Project Tools Are Essential
When there are multitudes of different people all working in different languages and these team members have to edit the same documents as each other, it can get complicated. This is where multilingual project management and team collaboration tools are essential. These are content platforms that support a wide number of different languages and allow people from different linguistic backgrounds to interact with the same material.
This can be a great way to make projects run more smoothly and create cohesion within a multinational team. This kind of software is state-of-the-art, and it is allowing for things that were never possible even ten years ago.
Translation is built into the platform so that people can seamlessly work on it without having to use any of their own translation tools. Obviously, when the project is finished it will require translation teams to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb. But this does make the day-to-day aspects of running a multilingual project much simpler.
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5. Outsourcing Some Aspects to Translation Services
Even if you are a multinational company with members of staff all over the globe, it could be difficult to find representatives for every country that you want to market in. On top of that, you may also need to check certain things objectively. This is where outsourcing to translation services can come in handy.
Translation services can double and triple-check all the work that you have developed. They can provide interpreters for business meetings, and they can advise about some cultural differences. If you go with a translation company that has a lot of experience in working on multilingual projects, it can be helpful.
This is because they can share knowledge and information about what has worked for other companies in the past. Therefore, when choosing a translation service, it is wise to do extensive research first so that you choose the best one available.
The Bottom Line
Multilingual project management can seem like a huge undertaking, but it is essential for scaling a business and reaching different markets all over the world. As business owners expand their teams into different territories, they need to make sure that they take on staff that have a strong command of English.
Thanks to advanced technology, there are plenty of online tools that make multilingual project management run more smoothly. By choosing the right software, team members are able to work seamlessly on the same projects without having to translate things manually all the time.
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