Screens International is an award-winning localization company based in Beirut, Paris and Montreal. Founded in 1991, it has grown from a start-up with 25 employees to an international group of more than 700 people working across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Its main focus is on subtitling and dubbing, but it also offers localization services for other types of digital content such as apps and websites. Screens works with some of the biggest names in the industry including Disney, Warner, MTV, Vubiquity, Chello, Sky, CNN, FOX, TV5
Agile project management
Screens International has been using agile since 2012 with translators and for translators
During the initial evaluation of the approach, we worked with translators to learn from their experience and needs. We reviewed several tools and brought them into our daily workflows, such as JIRA for project management, Slack for communication and Trello for task management.
Our goal was to create a shared understanding of what is needed in order to improve effectiveness while maintaining quality standards. During this process, we learned that certain processes were missing or unclear. The translation team felt that they weren’t included enough in decision making processes and often weren’t consulted until after key decisions had been made by others who didn’t necessarily understand all aspects of localization (e.g., legal or marketing). They also felt there wasn’t enough emphasis on working together through collaboration when it came time for review meetings with other departments within our organization such as legal or marketing teams.
"Agile helped us elevate our service quality. Working closely together made it possible to identify the weak links in the process and replace them"
Working with agile project management helps translators to deliver high quality translations on time and within budget. Agile approach in media localization provides an efficient way to translate complex content.
Agile project management helps translators to deliver on time, because it allows them to focus on their work without interruptions, while keeping the team up-to-date with the latest changes in the scope of work. Agile project management helps translators to deliver on budget by reducing unnecessary meetings and activities that may otherwise result in unnecessary expenses for your company. Implementing agile methodologies can help you reduce waste as well as potentially increase your profits!
"Agile also helped Screens build great trust relationships with our clients, based on open communication, mutual accountability and respect."
The Screens team is committed to agile project management and we also apply the same principles during localization projects:
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communicate in open ways
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be mutually accountable for delivery
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show respect for each other
Agile project management helps translate complex content more efficiently
Agile project management is an approach to project management that emphasizes adaptive planning, iterative development, and continuous evaluation. Agile methods are based on the idea that the most effective way to manage projects is to plan in short cycles of planning, development and testing. Agile approaches help translate complex content more efficiently because it allows for constant feedback between translators and editors.
The agile approach works well for media localization teams because each product has its own set of rules, terminology and formatting conventions. This means that every translation must be treated as a unique project with its own requirements.
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I can say that agile has been very successful in our localization projects. It’s a wonderful tool to help us work more efficiently with our translators and clients, and it helps build trust relationships between them. I also think it’s helped us elevate the quality of our service—we’re now able to solve problems quickly and effectively, before they become bigger problems!