Poll: In which of these areas could Project and Vendor managers most improve? Лице кое објавува дискусија: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "In which of these areas could Project and Vendor managers most improve?".
This poll was originally submitted by Codex Global. View the poll results »
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I don’t envy their job, I know how challenging that work can be and I must say that I have been extremely lucky with the PMs I have been in contact with over the years and in general our communication is limited to: “Are you available?”,“When will you deliver?”, “Thanks very much”… But there are always exceptions to confirm the rule: some years ago a translation agency with whom I have been working for a while had a trainee PM who was learning her job at the expense of the client... See more I don’t envy their job, I know how challenging that work can be and I must say that I have been extremely lucky with the PMs I have been in contact with over the years and in general our communication is limited to: “Are you available?”,“When will you deliver?”, “Thanks very much”… But there are always exceptions to confirm the rule: some years ago a translation agency with whom I have been working for a while had a trainee PM who was learning her job at the expense of the clients: no answer whatsoever to emails, POs were issued very late, etc. She left after one month and everything went back to normal. Last year I had a few problems with another agency: conflicting emails, POs were supposed to be provided at the end of the month and were always late and quite often incorrect, so the whole process (invoicing and payment) was also late. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they had bit off a little more than they could chew, because I had been working with them occasionally for some time with no problems, their projects were interesting (transcreation), very regular (each week) and well paid. After one year with almost no change, just when I had decided that enough was enough, the account was sold to another agency and… everything has been fine since. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Gibril Koroma 
Канада
Local time: 22:47
француски на англиски
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| Response time | Mar 31, 2019 |
It is sometimes very tough waiting for that crucial response.
| | | | neilmac
Шпанија
Local time: 04:47
шпански на англиски
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I don't really work a lot with agencies. I occasionally collaborate with one or two, and have never really had any problems with the PMs.
In fact, this poll query has reminded me that I still have to bill one of them for a job I did in January…
[Edited at 2019-03-31 19:37 GMT]
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I'm not sure what a "vendor" manager is. I guess as the translator I'm the vendor, but nobody manages me. I do work for agencies. I work for the ones where work goes smoothly and so there is nothing to improve. What makes things go smoothly is:
- communication, meaning that I am given what is wanted, the entire document to be considered
- my questions, feedback etc. before I accept the project get a response and consideration, which I guess goes back to communication
... See more I'm not sure what a "vendor" manager is. I guess as the translator I'm the vendor, but nobody manages me. I do work for agencies. I work for the ones where work goes smoothly and so there is nothing to improve. What makes things go smoothly is:
- communication, meaning that I am given what is wanted, the entire document to be considered
- my questions, feedback etc. before I accept the project get a response and consideration, which I guess goes back to communication
Among the decent agency clients, not every PM is an expert, and that is ok, because since I am the professional being consulted, that's what I'm there for. But the communication is there. If I say "We first need to know xxx from your end client." the find out xxx and get back to me. If I say "This scan is too fuzzy to work with." they ask the client for a better scan. Ideally a PM would see that herself before sending it to me, but what is more important is the response. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Muriel Vasconcellos (X)
Соединети Американски Држави
Local time: 19:47
шпански на англиски
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Nearly 90% of my work is for international organizations. I have no complaints. I haven't had many problems with agencies. My main issue with them would be what I consider to be frivolous requests, like translating addresses.
| | | | Mario Freitas
Бразил
Local time: 23:47
англиски на португалски
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| Professionalism | Apr 3, 2019 |
I didn't even see the other choices. The lack of professionalism among these people is amazing. Plus, it involves and implies all other items.
| | | | Manuela Grün
Германија
Local time: 04:47
англиски на германски
| I'm quite content with mine | Apr 4, 2019 |
Actually all of my customers are agencies and except of the first one that I was working with (only for three months though), all of them were extremely satisfying.
I know that this is more like an exception (or so it seems), but my PMs are always friendly and on point and if I do have an urgent question, I send an email with high importancy and they always almost immediately answer. Their instructions are usually very clear, except the customer didn't give them any.
As I work... See more Actually all of my customers are agencies and except of the first one that I was working with (only for three months though), all of them were extremely satisfying.
I know that this is more like an exception (or so it seems), but my PMs are always friendly and on point and if I do have an urgent question, I send an email with high importancy and they always almost immediately answer. Their instructions are usually very clear, except the customer didn't give them any.
As I worked as a project manager once myself, I do know that it's not an easy job, especially handling projects with more than 20 languages, but that didn't prevent me to treat my translators as living human beings and not working machines. I would never work with an agency that:
- doesn't have friendly staff
- doesn't send POs before starting the project (big no no)
- doesn't pay on agreed terms (big no no)
- doesn't provide me with clear instructions
- doesn't offer me contracts that are in my favour
Even though I do work with small agencies, most of the ones I work with are big enough to have vendor platforms and those agencies are usually the best. Not the ones who only pay low budgets or have a bidding system, these are obviously big no nos as well! ▲ Collapse
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