Revolution #2 Flexibility & Agility
In the pages of history, translators were bound by the rigid 9-to-5 routine. Days were devoted to bridging languages, while evenings were spent in the flickering candlelight, sharing tales of the sea—or whatever people did before Twitch. Their schedules were as inflexible as the projects they tackled, which were massive and demanded days, weeks, or even months to complete. Starting work often led to exhaustion and delays, resulting in frantic, error-filled rushes towards deadlines.
Such projects were like unmovable giants, leaving teams to face challenges with optimism and reactivity rather than well-thought-out strategies. But with the rise of cloud technology, our perspective on long-term tasks underwent a colossal transformation. Instead of continuous labour culminating in a single grand output, a new approach emerged—deconstructing tasks and adopting an agile method.
The agile method acts as a powerful force against traditional project strategies. When faced with a rigid plan, the agile approach swiftly breaks it into fragments, creating mini-plans known as ‘sprints.’ Each sprint is a test that uncovers issues for teams to tackle in the upcoming sprint.
This marked the first opportunity to involve translators and in-country reviewers in the project’s development phase. They could identify and solve problems over multiple sprints, a much better alternative than receiving a completed project and struggling to adapt it to various languages and cultures.
These adaptable assignments created a new breed of flexible translators. Many chose freelance work over the traditional 9-to-5 grind, embracing agile projects where flexibility was vital. As this evolution unfolded, translators became self-sufficient professionals armed with cloud-based tools for task management, communication, automation, and thorough content reviews.
Within cloud-based translation platforms, the equation is simple: efficient task management and communication lead to quick results. The key lies in the understanding that work can be done faster and more accurately when orchestrated through a platform that aligns with the dynamic flexibility of the modern agile methodology.
Read part 5
