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Straight from the Source – Defining a Successful Project

Last week we kicked-off Tuesday Tips with three great localization pointers from Donna, a senior project manager here at CSOFT. Moving forward, on every other Tuesday we’d like to follow up with our biweekly Straight from the Source series, where we pose a question to various members of the CSOFT family in order to give our readers a more intimate perspective on how we define ourselves individually within our organization.

Banner for the Straight from the Source series by the employees at CSOFT International.

This week’s question: How do you define a successful localization project? (All our readers out there, please feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts as well!)


Jayki, a project manager coordinator, says:

A successful project includes a quick turnaround and quality results. Client satisfaction is very important, but this cannot be achieved without good communication. Projects that stand out in my mind as successful are ones where we worked closely with the client to deal with issues together. I think complaints are also successful in a way because this leads to the future improvement of everyone involved.

Weiland, a senior project manager, says:

For me, I think there are two categories of successful projects. One is when there are no issues, no complaints, and no rebuttals. Everything and everyone operates smoothly. With projects where issues and complaints occur, success is when the team and the client are able to communicate effectively and well. Complaints are heard, action is taken and issues are resolved.

Success is a very big word, especially for large projects. I think real success is all about foresight: when a PM is able to see something that even the client might not see. Having the foresight to see potential risks and taking action. This is real success.

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Tammy, the Director of MedL10N, says:

A successful project is one that is executed on time with zero deficits, and one that not only meets clients’ expectations but exceeds them. I also think a project is successful when we are able to look at it as an educational process and learn from it for future reference.

Philippe, our Executive Assistant for Sales & Marketing, says:

Success comes when the client is satisfied beyond expectation, when we are able to promptly fix any issues that arise, whether the client informs us to or not, and also when internal operations run smoothly.

So how do you define the success of a project? We’d love to hear about it, so feel free to leave a comment, or visit csoftintl.com

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  1. For me a successful project means that I am able to offer even more than my client have expected in the first place. Simply meeting client requirements, although sometimes can be really demanding and tough, is not something that I am able to win clients’ long term loyalty with. I need to stand out from the crowd and constantly show how innovative, professional and original my way is. That I am able to show something different others are offering. It can be related to any kind of added value, cost efficiency, applied technology, quality assurance, customer service, anything really. Something my competitors would not even think of mentioning. For me success means being always one step ahead of others. This is the key to success, I think.

  2. Did the persons defined separately what is a success? if it is the case, we can see that CSOFT’s culture is well implemented since those 4 people almost gave the same definition.

    Giving now my personal inputs on the client’s side, I would say that Successful Project must meet the client expectation indeed, in term of quality and schedule, and this would be the first step.
    As a client I don’t really like to face issues, especially when it comes from the vendor’s side and here come my second point: Successful Project was delivered without any cloud.
    Last point, because we are all human beings, issues may happen but it is the way to anticipate them, like Weiland mentioned, or to fix them which is important.
    That’s my 2 cents…even though not that original

    I am sure somebody may have some different ideas about it, right?

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