Project Management in the Language Industry

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Project Management in the Language Industry
Lecture 10QUALITY MANAGMENT

• Dr. Gregory M. Shreve
• Kent State University
• Institute for Applied Linguistics

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Definition

• Quality is the totality of characteristics of an
  entity (or process) that bear on its ability to
  satisfy stated or implied needs
  

This implies that we have to identify the charac
teristics of a translation or localization deliv
erable or process that have a direct impact on t
he project products ability to serve its functi
on.
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Quality Project Means Quality Product

• Project quality management must address both the
  management of the project and the product of the
  project.

Project
Product
QUALITY
A quality management plan for a project should
describe how the project management team will
implement its quality policies. In ISO 9000
terminology, it should describe the project
quality system the organizational structure,
responsibilities, procedures, processes, and
resources needed to implement quality
management.
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Quality and Project
Quality management and project management both
emphasize customer satisfactionensuring cust
omer expectations are met or exceeded. This
requires both conformance to specifications and
fitness for use (the product or service produced
must satisfy real needs). prevention over ins
pectionthe cost of avoiding mistakes is always
much less than the cost of correcting them.
management responsibilitysuccess requires the
participation of all members of the team, but it
remains the responsibility of management to
provide the resources needed to succeed.
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• Quality Standardswhich quality standards are
  relevant to the project and determining how to
  satisfy them.
  
• Quality Assuranceevaluating overall project
  performance on a regular basis to provide
  confidence that the project will satisfy the
  relevant quality standards.
• Quality Controlmonitoring specific project
  results to determine if they comply with relevant
  quality standards and identifying ways to
  eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance.

Quality Management
monitoring / measuring according to standards
quality standards
system for applying
Standards
Assurance
Control
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Total Quality Management TQM
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Quality Control vs. Quality Assurance

• ISO 90002000 defines quality assurance (QA) as
  ensuring that quality requirements will be
  fulfilled, whereas quality control (QC) focuses
  on actually fulfilling them.
• QA encompasses procedures (a system) set in place
  to assure and document the production process,
  whereas QC is more focused on the actual
  production of quality product and services.
• In terms of translation and localization, the
  movement in the direction of TQM (total quality
  management) dictates an emphasis on the creation
  of infrastructures designed to assure increased
  quality and efficiency while reducing reliance on
  time-consuming end-item inspection (final editing
  and if necessary, rework). (SEW).

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End Item (Deliverable) Inspection Is Too Late /
Expensive
The translation procedure that is analogous to
end-item inspection is the final editing process
practiced by most reliable translation service
bureaus and departments. Although efforts are
made to ensure high quality through careful
selection of translators, the primary quality
focus of old translation QA is on final editing.
reduced reliance on
end-item inspection
Inspection Activities such as measuring, examini
ng, testing, gauging one or more characteristics
of a product or service and comparing these with
specified requirements to determine conformity.
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Process vs Product

• Process quality in the translation industry
  refers to the quality of the processes and
  operations that take places from the release or
  acceptance of a translation order to the delivery
  of the requested product.
• In contrast, product quality comprises the
  quality of the translation product, which can
  further be differentiated in terms of formal
  product quality and linguistic product quality.

Process QA Product QA
Prevent error Prevent variability
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process quality standard
Is the process being carried out in a documented
and standard way?
What standards were in place?
Translation Project
Delivery
Text Preparation
Translation
Edit
DTP
Proof
Term Processes
Glossary
Translation Memory
Translations
Edited Translations
Proofs
Deliverable Translation
Term
end-item
product quality standard
Does the deliverable meet the standardized
criteria ?
Do we have a means to assess it?
conformance
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Quality Management Standards

• Quality management involves identifying which
  quality standards are relevant to the project and
  determining how to satisfy them.

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Product QualityOperational Definitions / Quality
Metrics

• Operational definitions. An operational
  definition describes, in very specific terms,
  what something is, and how it is measured by the
  quality control process. For example, it is not
  enough to say that meeting the planned schedule
  dates is a measure of management quality the
  project management team must also indicate
  whether every activity must start on time, or
  only finish on time whether individual
  activities will be measured or only certain
  deliverables, and if so, which ones. Operational
  definitions are also called quality metrics in
  some application areas.
• So we would need operational definitions (quality
  metrics) for
  

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Terminology
Glossary quality Term record quality Data catego
ry quality
Translation Memory
SAE J 2450
Translations
A quality translation is defined under
SAE J2450 as
one free from the following defects
Quality Metrics
Quality Targets
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While the SAE standard can be viewed as an
important contribution toward the development of
a quality metric for the language mediation
field, it does not address issues of style,
intertextuality, cultural significance, etc.,
that are critical in other translation venues.
(See also ATA Standard Framework).
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Some Other Criteria / Characteristics
Content level plausibility correctness val
idity (concepts, definitions, propositions)
relevance (situation- and context-dependent)
adequacy (in relation to goals stated and user
needs specified)
Formal level linguistic correctness orthography
morpho- and text syntax collocations gramma
r
gender part of speech
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Critical Item List
FMEA Critical Items Lists Failure Mode and
Effect Analysis (FMEA), is a practice intended
for implementation during the design or planning
stage of a product or service. Product or service
characteristics are typically listed and
categorized in terms of criticality
(catastrophic, critical, marginal, minor). The
creation of a relevant Critical Items List (CIL)
is a typical activity for any serious assessment
schema. It is also typical in language metrics to
classify errors according to severity generally
(but not always) critical, serious (major),
minor. Note that schemes like ATA error-checki
ng and the SAE metric are CILs.
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Process Quality QA Processes

• QA processes are designed to catch
  non-conformant product early in the document /
  translation production chain in order to
  eliminate the need for later rework, to increase
  efficiency, and to decrease the risk of
  downstream consequences due to the proliferation
  of discrepant product (e.g., misunder-standings
  and even critical accidents or other calamities
  due to translation error).
• Improve quality by documenting processes and
  ensuring that they enable quality product (e.g.
  terminology policies for the organization that
  follow ISO recommendations).
• Do QC checking earlier in the process rather than
  later (e.g. quality check terminology prior to
  translation editing.)

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Reliability

• Whether we talk about QC, QA, or TQM, product
  reliability is the ultimate objective of quality
  efforts. The Compilation of ASTM Standard
  Definitions defines reliability as the
  probability of performing without failure a
  specified function under normal conditions for a
  specified period of time . . .
• In manufacturing and specifically in gauge
  control, reliability can be expressed as a
  function of repeatability and reproducibility. A
  gauge or a process must yield the same results
  over a reasonable amount of time.

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Reliability

• The analogy to translation or text production in
  general is, of course, a metaphorical one at
  best. The narrow tolerances demanded of a
  manufactured part are difficult to define for
  texts. Despite these differences, repeatability
  and reproducibility are nevertheless critical
  factors in determining the reliability of texts
  can the same translation processes be
  replicated over time, or can a different
  translator produce the same degree of accuracy,
  either simultaneously or over a period of time?
• Where is our best opportunity to achieve
  reliability repeatability reproducibility?
  

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Critical and Significant Characteristics

• Quality Assurance, like terminology, is concerned
  first and foremost with the properties of
  objects, or specifically, with the
  characteristics that distinguish an object from
  other objects in its class and that must be
  tested in order to ensure proper performance.
• Of special concern are those properties of the
  product that can lead to customer injury
  (critical characteristics) or to seriously
  impaired product performance (significant
  characteristics)it is instructive to consider
  what the significant characteristics of a text
  actually are.

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Critical and Significant Characteristics

• Wright argues that terminology, down to the level
  of the discrete term are among the most critical
  and significant of translation quality factors.
  
• What elements of the text that are likely to
  create critical or significant problems with
  language and content? If we can assume that the
  translator or technical writer producing a
  technical text is a master of the general
  language in which the text is written, we can
  then conclude that the terminology that makes up
  the text comprises that aspect of the text that
  poses the greatest risk for failure.
• Translation memory segments would also belong to
  a set of critical and significant
  characteristics.
  

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Critical and Significant Characteristics

• The premise that terminology reflects the
  critical and significant
  
• criteria inherent in the text implies two basic
  principles
  
• Each term constitutes a significant (or
  potentially critical)
  
• characteristic that must be correctly rendered if
  the text is to
  
• function as intended.
• Each specialized term represents a potential
  departure from
  
• common language and hence a potential problem for
  the translator
  
• or writer that s/he must solve in order to assure
  capable
  
• performance.

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Localization Quality Assurance
Localization Quality Assurance is part of the
total Software Quality Assurance Process.
Software Quality Assurance involves the entire
software development PROCESS - monitoring and
improving the process, making sure that any
agreed-upon standards and procedures are
followed, and ensuring that problems are found
and dealt with. It is oriented to 'prevention'.
Software Testing involves operation of a system
or application under controlled conditions and
evaluating the results (eg, 'if the user is in
interface A of the application while using
hardware B, and does C, then D should happen').
The controlled conditions should include both
normal and abnormal conditions. Testing should
intentionally attempt to make things go wrong to
determine if things happen when they shouldn't or
things don't happen when they should. It is
oriented to 'detection'.
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A Software Quality Assurance Cycle
(Source Language) Quality Assured Tested Softwa
re
Software QA
Software Publisher
(Target Language) Localization Quality Assured
Tested Software
Localization Vendor
Localization QA
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Elements of L10N Quality Assurance
Localization QA
prevention
detection
Assurance Testing
Assurance Procedures
internationalization localization
functionality

• It is important to note that the software the
  localization vendor receives is already tested
  and working. Localization is all about preventing
  working code from being broken during the
  localization process. Localization is therefore
  dependent on rigorous testing as part of the
  Localization QA process.

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Internationalization Testing

• A product received from a software publisher has
  (supposedly) already been internationalized.
  Internationalization testing is done in order to
  determine how well internationalization has been
  done. For instance, will the product be easy to
  localize? Have all the localizable resources been
  separated from the source code? Does the software
  support Unicode?

INTERNATIONALIZATION TESTING
INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT
LOCALIZABILITY TEST
localizable resources externalized?
any regional settings hard-coded?
any concatenated strings? do the RC files conta
in non-localizables (over-externalizing)?
text expansion allowed for? text on non-layered
graphics? how many other components (icons, gra
phics, etc.) need to be adapted?
MBC characters and scripts? MBC input and displ
ay? MBC folder, file, data handled? Regional s
ettings? Collation/sorting? Run on localized O
S? Keyboard support?
Pseudotranslation (Catalyst) is an important par
t of internationalization
testing.
SRC Esselink, A Practical Guide to Software
Localization
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Localization Testing
LOCALIZATION TESTING
LINGUISTIC
FUNCTIONAL
COSMETIC
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Linguistic Testing
all text been translated? accented chars handled
properly? punctuation rules of target? target wo
rd wrap, hyphenation, sorting?
no truncations in dialogs? consistency in termino
logy/usage? all icons, graphics or sounds need to
be adjusted? are concatenated strings displayed
properly? have leading and trailing spaces been
deleted, causing errors when strings are
concatenated? are strings with variables displayi
ng properly? are hot key and control key assignme
nts consistent with OS standards?
B
Focuses on all the language elements of an
application. Done (ideally) in running
localized application. Uses test scripts ideally.
SRC Esselink, A Practical Guide to Software
Localization
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Cosmetic Testing
all of the menus, options and commands of the
original? dialog boxes all properly resized? all
characters display properly? did you test to see
that all popup boxes, tool tips, balloons,
status messages and dialogs fit on the screen at
all resolutions? when expanding and resizing, has
alignment and size consistency been maintained?
hot keys unique? has the tab order (if any) of th
e original been changed? some controls (combo box
es, menus) have drop down elements, do they
display properly? do all the dialogs display the
correct regional settings?
Focuses on all the visual elements of the UI.
Done (ideally) in running
localized application.
SRC Esselink, A Practical Guide to Software
Localization
35
Functionality Testing
did localization introduce any problems? All
functions and features present?
can the localized and original versions save and
open the same files? do international keyboards a
nd layouts work with the hot keys and control
keys? is the proper regional setting, keyboard, l
anguage the default? does the clipboard preserve
MBC and accented characters? Can they be cut and
pasted to other applications? does the applicatio
n work on both the localized and original version
of the OS? do links to web and on-line help point
to target language help? do target language spel
l checkers, style checkers, dictionaries work?
does the localized version work on the hardware
platform, with peripherals and accessories,
drivers? Does the localized version interact with
browsers and other programs properly?
Focuses on whether the application still works
after localization. A well internationalized prod
uct will likely not fail functionality testing.
Not a standard task, but done at vendor request
with test scripts.
SRC Esselink, A Practical Guide to Software
Localization
36
More on Functionality Testing

• Seldom done as part of localization process.
  Cannot overcome lack of thorough
  internationalization testing!
  
• Duplication of source-language test scripts and
  routines required
  
• Special attention paid to locale-specific
  components and issues
  
• Need to create complete testing environments,
  client/server applications and hardware
  
• Client proprietary tools
• Test scripts
• integration testing testing two localized
  products or components together to see how they
  work
  
• performance testing how does the product (web
  site?) work under heavy load

A localization vendor that has the capability of
doing a comprehensive functionality test
Suite canprdouce a so-called gold master of the
localized software. This product can
be manufactured and distributed as is.
SRC Esselink, A Practical Guide to Software
Localization
37
Delivery Testing

• Are the folders and files correct in number and
  location?
  
• Are all files in the specified formats and on the
  specified media?
  
• Are there the same number of files in the
  original and in the target?
  
• Has the installer and uninstaller been localized
  and tested?
  
• Are all the versions of files and components the
  correct and latest versions?
  
• Is the distribution media folder structure
  identical to the source?
  
• Have all files been virus checked?

Focuses on ensuring that all the client required
deliverables were provided according
to project specifications.
SRC Esselink, A Practical Guide to Software
Localization
38
QA Team Structure
QA TEAM
manager
testing engineers
QA engineers
same as testing engineer can design test scr
ipts / plan can manage the testing project exp
erience in software QA bug tracking database exp
erience
multiple OS/platforms knowledge
interface / API knowledge knows the application
can use scripts and automated testing tools
same as localization engineer
e.g., trained localizer with experience in
testing
Bug tracking (software problem reports)
and bug databases are an important part of testin
g
management.
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LISA QA Model
LISA QA Model Version 2.0 The only non-proprieta
ry global quality standards for the localization
profession, the LISA QA Model, offers a
standardized quality assurance model for product
localization that covers everything from
documentation, help, and software, through to
packaging and CBT tutorials. Discussions of, and
checklists for, language, formatting, and
functional criteria are provided, as are
procedures and templates for sampling and
follow-up activities.