GLOBALIZATION FOR IT PROJECT MANAGERS

Timothy Fallen-BaileyNovember 2013

© 2013 Timothy Fallen-Bailey 2

Software Has To Be Global

• The Web is global – web pages must be globalized

• Software products can be downloaded anywhere – products must be globalized

• Companies are global – their processes should also be global

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First…know your markets

Young Marketing Executive newly appointed to the Middle East starts a new campaign for an energy drink…

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E-Commerce Web Page

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What Did You See?

Vendor names not translated

Screenshot of localised

product

Units in inches[BAD – should

be metric]

Conformance to French law

(radiation level)

Currency symbol at end

of number

Cultural abbreviation

for ‘hours’

Comma as decimal

point

Local version of

‘megabyte’

Description in local

language

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Small Print Is Important

© Copyright : France Télécom France Télécom - SA au capital de 10 595 541 532 € - RCS Paris 380 129 86678 rue Olivier de Serres, 75015 Paris

Offres soumises à conditions. La livraison des produits s'effectue uniquement en France métropolitaine. Voir toutes les conditions sur le site orange.fr.Conformément à la Loi Informatique et Libertés du 6 Janvier 1978, vous disposez à tout moment, d'un droit d'accès et de rectification ou d'opposition aux données personnelles vous concernant. Il vous suffit de nous contacter en écrivant au Centre courrier - Orange service clients - gestion des données personnelles - 33734 Bordeaux cedex 9, en joignant une pièce justificative d'identité. Pour ne plus recevoir de messages cliquez ici.

Reference to local law

Country-specific

company registration

Conformance to EU Data

Privacy Directive (Regional

requirement) Local practice to determine

IDFrench PO Box system

Space as thousands separator

Local postal format

Legal name (with accents)

Currency symbol at end

of number

Local company

type

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What is Software Globalization?

1. Ability to handle local needs (Locales)1. Characters2. Formats – date, time, numbers, address3. Sorting4. Language switching

2. Translation – into several languages

3. Adaptation to specific country needs1. Legal requirements e.g. invoices2. Currency, Taxes3. Standards e.g. Labeling, Privacy, etc.

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Internationalization

Localization

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Globalization =

Internationalization+

Localization

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PROJECT PLANNING

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Typical Software Project (Waterfall)

Design

Develop

Test

Ship

Support

Time

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Globalization as Add-On (Waterfall)

Design

Develop

Test

Ship

SupportTime

GlobalNeeds

GlobalFeatures

GlobalTesting

GlobalSupport

LocalVersions

StringFreeze

Translate

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What problems do you foresee?

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• Translations are always rushed1

• Errors, bugs found too late to be fixed2

• Non-English versions are poor quality3

Typical Problems

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There must be a better way…

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Globalization Optimized (Waterfall)

Global Design

Internationalized Development

Globalized Testing

Sim-Ship

Time

GlobalizedSupport

Translate Translate TranslateGlossary

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ORGANIZATION

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DevelopmentEngineers

DevelopmentEngineers

Globalization Players

Translation Project

Manager

TranslationCompanies

Product Manager

Product Development TeamField Sales,Customers

DevelopmentEngineers

Test/QAEngineers

Project Manager

Internationalization Technical Expert

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Typical Language Priorities(But all products and markets are different)

Tier 1• FIGS

– French– German– Italian– Spanish

• Japanese

Tier 2• Chinese-Simplified• Chinese-Traditional• Portuguese-Brazil• Dutch• Korean• Etc…

Product is usually developed with English text

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Standards & Terms

Internationalization• Unicode ~ ISO 10646

– Standard for characters and their codes

– ALL software should support this standard

• ISO 639 – Language Codes• ISO 3166 – Country Codes• ISO 4217 – Currency Codes

Localization• TMX

– Standard for Translation Memory Exchange

• SDL Trados – very common ‘translator’s workbench’ software

• MT = Machine Translation

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Resources

Item WebsiteUnicode www.unicode.org

ISO www.iso.org

Microsoft ‘Go Global’ Developer Center

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb688110.aspx

IBM ICU Library http://site.icu-project.org

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DISCUSSION