There are many reasons why a project manager may be disconnected from the GILT process.  For example, many large companies can afford the luxury of a Localization department (or as I like to call it, “GILT Management”), which can have the unintended consequence of making the Localization process seem peripheral to the project manager.  But PMs who don’t have to deal directly with GILT still need to be aware of it as a risk factor.  The financial benefits of globalization on a product are significant, and make this process relevant to anyone developing the product.  Requirements that come to a detached PM from the Loc. team may seem absurd, but chances are it will have a significant impact on ROI.

Project Managers in smaller companies who cannot afford in-house Localization departments often outsource at least some of that work to vendors, again creating a split between the PM and the Localization efforts.

Either way, a PM needs to be aware of the many risks involved in making sure that their product is prepared for globalization and can be localized accurately.  Understanding what it takes to project manage the localization of a product will shed some light over these risks and allow them to be managed more accurately, whether you are fully integrated with the localization team or working separately from them.  This will mitigate many of these risks, which is, after all, part of the project manager’s job.

 This one-hour webinar presents best practices for Localization Project Management, and is perfect if you are a PM who wants to familiarize yourself more with the PM role in Localization.  It is free, and you can watch it on your own schedule and earn a PDU.  The webinar is presented by Hiram Machado, President of adaQuest and faculty member at University of Washington, where he teaches a course on Localization both at the Master’s Level and for a certificate program.  Click here to register: http://www.adaquest.com/webinars1.php

If you have a leadership role in a small to medium sized organization, chances are you wear a lot of hats.  It’s natural to try to handle resource allocation in an ad-hoc manner.  Common wisdom says, only big firms can justify spending the money for portfolio planning and management processes and tools.  However, Project Server is a surprising resource for small companies.

With Project Server 2010, Microsoft has brought project portfolio management to the masses.  Before the 2010 release, portfolio prioritization was only available to highly structured, very mature organizations, but with Project Server 2010’s simplified web user interface, Microsoft walks any user through the process of capturing their business drivers, prioritizing those drivers against each other, establishing portfolios, etc. Once that is done the software applies a mature calculation process which evaluates the information you have already entered to produce charts, graphs, tables and other objective data to help you determine where you should focus your energy and resources.  There is no need for complex financials or other types of data.

Here’s an example of where this could be useful:

Suburban Plastics, Inc. – a fictitious company

Current business:  “Suburban, Inc.” produces sheet plastic for the local market.  The company is set in a suburban environment which provides the employees with a very comfortable area to exercise and a safe place to come to work.  “Suburban, Inc.” isn’t large enough to have a company fitness program.  The company would like to grow but not at the cost of its culture or history.

The business drivers, as decided upon by the leadership team, are as follows:

1. Grow Revenue
2. Diversify Market
3. Provide a healthy and happy work environment
4. Provide the highest quality product

Click image to enlarge

After doing a pairwise comparison (shown below) of the drivers the following priority order is calculated and agreed upon by the leadership team.

Click image to enlarge

After evaluating each driver against each other the following results were calculated by Project Server.

1. Provide the highest quality product                                          % 42
2. Grow Revenue                                                                         % 28
3. Provide a healthy and happy work environment                      % 19
4. Diversify Market                                                                       % 11

A proposal is presented to the leadership team to grow the business by entering into the manufacturing of plastic widgets.  This will most likely grow the annual revenue and it will certainly diversify their market.  On the surface this looks like a good way to invest in the future of the company.

However, after adding this initiative to the Portfolio it is easy to see that the initiative does not support the #1 business driver since this requires new machinery and new processes.  It scores high for #2, there is some risk so it only gets 80% credit for that driver.  To expand the business footprint, Suburban will have to relocate to an industrial neighborhood so it again does not support a business driver, this time #3.  For #4 the initiative is fully in alignment.  This means that the initiative gets full credit for supporting that driver.

Using Project Server the initiative scores a 33.4 % alignment.  This is very low and shows the leadership that while this sounded like a good idea, it is not very well aligned with their corporate priorities and therefore should not be undertaken.

This simple, structured method helps businesses eliminate preconceptions from the decision making process by providing objective data that is created around your company’s priorities, rather than an emotional response.  Essentially using Microsoft Project Server 2010’s portfolio management capability will help any organization stay true to its beliefs and goals.  You will not be driven by the passion of the moment to make your business decisions.

Don’t rely on this!

If you have questions about how this can work for your organization, feel free to contact me at davidd@adaquest.com .

This figure illustrates the role that a staffing vendor should play; specifically, that a successful vendor will nurture both the relationship with the customer and the relationship with the candidate they have placed through regular communication and measuring of goals.

The nature of staffing is that you place a candidate with a customer, and then the customer directly manages that candidate.  Because of this, it is easy to drop the ball on follow-through.  That is why it is important to have follow-up plan that includes customer and employee goals, and metrics to measure the success of those goals.

Here are some keys for a successful vendor-customer-talent triangle:

1. Openness.  Clearly define the expectations from both the customer and the talent (see list of examples below).  You need to begin with transparency between everyone’s expectations so that you can all work from a common ground.
2. Define your metrics based on this common ground.  Once you have clarified your collective expectations, work with the customer to define the metrics for measuring those expectations. Then follow through with that measuring on a monthly basis.
3. Keep the communication flowing continuously through all three points of the triangle.  Make sure it is understood that the client will meet regularly with the employee, and that you as the vendor will meet with both the employee and the customer bi-monthly.

Clarifying expectations from the beginning and making a plan to measure the achievement of those expectations, is one way a vendor can become a true asset to both the customer and the employee and set themselves apart from the “place ‘em and leave ‘em” crowd.

I  think he needs to work on his translation skills….

(originally posted on www.funnysigns.net)

Tell us how you really feel.

http://www.lolcaption.com/funny_pictures/engrish-funny-translations/page/2/

Forget the lemonade stand…

http://carolhu.blogspot.com/2009/12/funny-translation-in-beijing-olympic.html

You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around…

http://rivasfranke.com/blog/tag/funny/

Better than the “same old”…

(originally posted on www.funnyordie.com by vegasbuzzvideo)

If you have seen the movie, I’d love to hear what you think of the scene with subtitles added to it!  Feel free to comment below.

Have a great weekend!

Sign up here for a free webinar on Localization Project Management on April 12th by Hiram Machado, faculty member at University of Washington and President of adaQuest, Inc.  https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/941855681

“I want to neglect the remainder of my life with you…”

Video courtesy of blamesocietyfilms

Sign up here for a free webinar on Localization Project Management by Hiram Machado, faculty member at University of Washington and President of adaQuest, Inc.  https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/941855681

“It was a great experience representing adaQuest at the Microsoft Project Conference 2012 - held in Phoenix, AZ - last week. The conference gave adaQuest a great opportunity to showcase our business offerings with customers and Microsoft Partners. Our flagship product, the Project Butler, got great reviews and we also got the rare opportunity to get direct feedback from many potential users.

Rafa Ballesteros (@rafabono) manning the adaQuest booth in the exhibition hall.

All the presenters were fantastic; including adaQuest’s own David Ducolon, who presented on The Project Butler: Integrating SharePoint and Project Server to Build Better Project Plans.

Lunch was served at adaQuest's presentation - yum!

Even in the very distracting atmosphere of the exhibit hall, adaQuest got approached over and over by people who wanted to know more about “our cute little guy” - the Project Butler.

The Project Butler

Others came looking for us saying that they had already heard about how we could create “projects on steroids” in Project Server. The energy we felt during the conference has energized us even more to reach out and help more customers and continue to improve our products.”

Eric Sandurs, winner of our XBOX giveaway with adaQuest President, Hiram Machado.

Thanks to everyone whose hard work made the conference so special!

To learn more about our “cute little guy”, the Project Butler, visit http://theprojectbutler.com.

adaQuest will have an exhibition booth, and will be giving a sponsored lunch presentation on Wednesday titled: The Project Butler: Integrating SharePoint and Project Server to Build Better Project Plans.  Our Solutions Architect, David Ducolon will be presenting.

David Ducolon

If you will be at the conference, please stop by our booth!  We will be demonstrating an exciting new tool and holding a drawing for an XBOX 360 premium console with Kinect and two games.

See you there!