McElroy Translation had been a successful company for decades, primarily working with established clients on fairly routine projects (patent and article translations from foreign languages into English). Procedures that had been developed over the years were performed as they always had been. Deadlines, for the most part, were determined arbitrarily and many projects lingered well beyond their due dates or were subject to sudden acceleration with little explanation. Individual departments operated independently, often unaware of the activities of neighboring departments, and were generally not informed about the procedures, activities, and goals of the sales and operations divisions of the company.

In the 1980s, a rudimentary Project Management culture began to emerge, involving tracking and oversight of workflow by project coordinators, and independent planning and tracking methodologies adopted by individual departments. While this improved internal efficiency within each department and gave management an overview of project activities, there was still little communication between divisions, commitments were made regarding project scope and turnaround without the participation of staff, and line managers were obliged to cope with the specifications and deadlines assigned as best they could.

In the late 1990s, the nature of the translation business began to change rapidly with the advent of globalization as a corporate necessity and subsequent increased client demand for sophisticated, full-service solutions and aggressive turnaround times. McElroy began to analyze both the increased activity in requests for translation from English into foreign languages and for expedited delivery requests, and further analyzed internal processes and how the existing business model could be modified to better serve new customer demands.

After soliciting input from upper managers, project managers, line managers and employees, it was determined that dissemination of information and improved communication company-wide (including communication between company representatives and clients) had to be improved in order to position McElroy to develop a competitive edge by offering clients solutions rather than products.

A rapid and radical shift in culture and approach took place as a result of this evaluation.

• How would you describe the business problem you are trying to solve?
• What is the current system in place for addressing translation needs?
• Please describe content authoring.
• How will the translations be used?
• What is your desired output?
• What resources will be available to the translators? Do you own existing translation memories or terminology glossaries?
• Please quantify historical and projected translation activity.

(For less complex projects, the simple question “What are you planning to do with the deliverable?” often yields important information that can result in a more effective project plan.)

• Lengthy team meetings on selected projects were replaced with a daily meeting, generally lasting no longer than 15 minutes, reviewing daily and weekly project status, giving representatives of all departments the opportunity to make suggestions, ask questions, or engage others in problem-solving. This activity proved to be particularly valuable when dealing with high-risk projects, but also consistently identified solvable problems in more routine projects that previously would not have been discussed in a team setting.
• Project managers established an open-door policy, and were encouraged to communicate freely with all staff regarding decisions and assumptions, and to incorporate staff feedback into current or future project plans. Management’s visible respect for the technical expertise of the employees in the trenches improved morale and trust, and often allowed project managers to proactively renegotiate deadlines or staged deliverables.
• Deadlines were assigned to best accommodate client needs and internal workload. Projects were prioritized using a simple coding system, designed to indicate the relative urgency of deadlines and also to indicate where deadline flexibility was possible.
• A dedicated customer service department was created to address client issues, to collect and disseminate information regarding post-delivery problems, and to conduct project postmortems to improve understanding of client needs company-wide.
• Analysis of how information was communicated—between upper management, sales, Project Management, operations, clients, and accounting—led to the development of electronic shipping procedures and customized electronic reporting that eliminated much of the faxing, copying, shipping and filing tasks that had previously required the services of a full-time office clerk.

The availability and sharing of information and the emphasis on Project Management as a company culture, along with upper management’s commitment to encouraging teamwork and cooperation, has transformed McElroy, which now enjoys niche status as a vendor of choice for extremely high-risk projects that many agencies must turn away due to turnaround requests, complexity, or the need for customized solutions.