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Topic 1 Project Management; Terminology Project Management

The use of consistent terminology upon which users publicly agree reflects the quality of the
final version of a document in technical subjects.
The ultimate objective is to keep the project productive and cost-efficient.

ISO 15188 (2001) describes the phases and procedures to be followed in terminology
standardization projects

Project Management Training is KEY in the translation businesses

PM Basics shall be included in BA curricula for communication professionals, translators &
interpreters
- in Vienna, PM is compulsory lecture within the BA at the Centre for Translation Studies
since 2007
- PM Skills are mandatory for terminology projects
- Project Management Training is KEY in the terminology businesses and shall be included
in BA curricula for communication professionals and terminologists
- European and International professional standards to be followed
- Certified Terminology Manager: Job role, definition and assessment of skills and
competences developed by TermNet within EU project EU-Certand the European
Qualification Network: www.eu-certificates.org

ISO 15188:2001 Scope

- it specifies guidelines setting out the phases and procedures to be followed in terminology
standardization projects, as well as harmonization and uniformity projects, both inside and
outside the framework of international standardization.

DEFINITION: terminology project – project aimed at collecting, developing, analysing

and recording the terminology of one or more subject fields.
3.2 standardization project – project aimed at establishing provisions for common and
repeated use.
3.5 terminology standardization – establishment of terminology standards or of
terminology sections in technical standards, and their approval by an authoritative body.

Project phases: preparation, design, implementation and review (annex A). The breakdown
of the phases and responsibilities depends on the scope of the particular project.

DEFINITION The management process through which a terminology project evolves, from
its beginning to its completion and particularly when applied to standardization, unfolds
through a sequence of phases: preparation, design, implementation and review.

Preparation phase – an evaluation of the feasibility of the project, a description of its legal,
financial, and organizational framework and the preparation of specifications based on the
feasibility study and framework.
- feasibility
- framework specifications
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Design phase:
- project leadership
- project planning
- work plan
- work methods
- work tools
- meetings
Implementation phase – collecting and recording terminological data. It involves
identifying documentation in which relevant terms and conceptual information may be found,
evaluating this documentation for its reliability and relevance, establishing term lists,
developing concept fields and systems, formulating definitions, searching for terms and their
equivalents in multilingual projects and structuring entries according to the recording
medium and format chosen by the working group during the design phase.

Review, evaluation and verification phase – a review and evaluation of the terminology
product by terminologists, subject-field specialists and users of the terminological data
collection, as well as an evaluation of the terminology standardization project. Quality
assurance of the terminology product is established by its compliance with measures outlined
in ISO 704, ISO 860, ISO 1087-1, ISO 10241, and ISO/TR 12618.
Final phase – preparation of a final report on the project and completion of a financial
review.
Final report – report documenting the history of the project should be prepared by the
project leader. This report summarizes the project's objectives, provides an analysis of all the
phases of the project and references sources used for its completion.
Financial review.

THE LIFE OF A PROJECT (adapted from Franck Marle, Ludovic-Alexandre Vidal,

Managing Complex, High Risk Projects. A Guide to Basic and Advanced Project
Management, Springer 2016)
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PROJECT INITIATION
The project launching phase should be addressed through three principal steps.
• Step 1: Specifying project values and objectives
• Step 2: Defining project scope
• Step 3: Project contracting
Definitions and characteristics
A phase of a project is a part of a project (including every aspect of the project) which covers
a period of its existence. It is defined by a number and/or a name, a start date (SD) and a
finish date (FD).
The phases of a project are generally disjoint and separated by one or several milestones of
the project. The successive phases should cover the entire period of existence of the project
(its lifecycle).
The cutting of the project lifecycle into phases can be done according to several criteria. For
instance, a phase can be defined according to an ensemble of deliverables which must be
delivered at a certain FD after a period of work starting on SD.
Once the phases of the project are identified, one should list the stakeholders of the project
during each phase.
Definition
A project stakeholder is a person, a group, a firm, or any organizational system which affects
or can be affected (for it has interest or concern in the project) by the project.
Once the project is initiated, planning the project is necessary to build initial reference
documents for project execution as well as project monitoring and control.
A possible division into sub-processes is presented hereinafter:
• Scope and work planning: the correct definition of the scope and specifications of the
deliverables of the project; decomposing and organizing the entire project work into smaller
units and thus more manageable packages of work;
• Time planning and scheduling: once the project work is organized and decomposed, it can
be planned in terms of time and scheduling. In order to do so, two processes should be
addressed. First of all, a logical arborescence should be built to express the sequencing
relationships between the identified project tasks. This means that, for each task, its
predecessors (the tasks which need to be completed as a direct input for the considered task)
must be identified.
Second, the duration of tasks should be estimated.
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Workload diagram of a project

• Resource and cost planning
Definition “Project cost management includes the processes required to ensure that the
project is completed within an approved budget” (Schwalbe 2013). The construction of the
approved budget, which is the output of the cost planning process, is important, since it will
serve as an input for monitoring and control processes.
• Quality and performance planning: success and project quality criteria should thus
properly be defined during the project quality planning process so that the targets for project
quality can be understood and shared by all project actors and stakeholders.
• Risk planning A project risk is the possibility that an event occurs, an event the occurrence
of which would imply positive or negative consequences for the project execution (Gourc
2006). Risk identification is the process of determining events which could impact project
objectives.
Dealing with project risks:
 Avoidance
 Probability and/or impact reduction (mitigation), including contingency
planning
 Transfer, including subcontracting and insurance buying
 Acceptance
Carrying Out the Project: the execution phase should permit to deliver the expected project
deliverables of objectives.
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Example of an updated Gantt chart after the risk response planning process
https://www.teamgantt.com/guide-to-project-planning
or
https://www.smartsheet.com/blog/gantt-chart-excel
Monitoring and Controlling Phase: the overall purpose of project monitoring and control
processes is to understand the evolution of the project and measure (quantitatively or
qualitatively) its progress. This permits to undertake actions to correct the trajectory of the
project when it deviates from the plan (in terms of schedule, cost, performance, etc.), or when
it appears that current objectives have no chance to be reached with the current and future
situation.
Closing Projects: once the project deliverables are accepted, the project needs to be closed.
Closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. This phase
consists of:
• Activity closure: Finalize all activities in order to close the project.
• Contract closure: Complete and settle each contract.
and close each contract applicable to the project or project phase.
• Knowledge management activities (Devine et al. 2010): A precise and exhaustive
identification of project successes or failures is necessary to capture lessons learned.
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• Opportunity identification
• Administrative closure: Includes archiving the files and documenting the lessons learned.
TASK 1: consider a project such as a book translation (e.g. The Mystery of Banking, see
slides). What would the steps be in translating it as a team of 4? Estimate resources, time,
cost, price. Hand over your project after the Easter Holiday.

How to boil an egg

Necessary things/Resources: stove, pot, water, egg; 12-15 minutes.

1. Get a pot. Pour water in it.

2. Put the pot on the stove. Let it boil.
3. Once the water is boiling, get an egg from the fridge and put it in the pot.
4. Leave the egg in for 3-5 minutes.
5. Turn off the stove, cool the egg with cold water and peel it off.

Risks: you leave the egg in for too long and it cracks and breaks apart, or it doesn’t
come out hard or soft enough.

Project closure: house cleaning.

You finish cleaning and rest in a clean environment.
Post mortem – assessing how the project went and seeing how you can improve
afterwards.
!!!!Mystery of banking. – project plus Gantt chart; steps, resources, timeline

TIMELINE – 4 saptamani
RESOURCES – translators, the actual book, laptops, internet, term bases and records,
dictionaries
COSTS – 23 lei/page

Steps:
1. assemble a team of 4 translators within a maximum of 4 days since the matter of
translating the book came up
2. research on the author and the field of discussion (for a total of 2 days after
establishing the translators), to be discussed in a scheduled meeting with all 4
translators => week 1
3. assign a number of pages to each translator – 80 pages each, and the remaining 2
pages will be translated collectively during the first meeting, hence they contain the title
(322 pgs total)
4. set of deadline for the first checking of the translations => 2 weeks after the first
meeting and assignment of the no. of pages each translator must translate
5. the second meeting: checking the compatibility of the translated pages together
6. revising the translation, double checking for use of the same terminology and
matching of the context; putting together the pages and chapters and making sure they
are cohesive. => max. 4 days to make any necessary changes
7. turn in the work

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