Become an Agile-ista!

Wayne Bourland (Dell)Kåre Lindahl (Venga)

Stanislav Kalianov (Schneider Electric)Mika Pehkonen (F‐secure)

Benefits of Agile

Client:Same Time Zone ‐ Closer 

access to SMEs

Better at meeting customer’s actual needs ‐ Reduce time wasting

ProviderSame Time Zone ‐ Closer 

access to SMEs

Steady stream of projects

InfoDev benefits from agile practices

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Benefits of agile

• How Agile benefitted my company

• Faster time to market - more frequent releases, customer feedback.

• Current release schedule: 4 major releases per year, technology previews bi-weekly (to beta group and select customers).

• How agile benefitted localization

• Shift from project management to customer service.

• Continuous improvement of processes, tools and bug fixing, faster reaction times to anomalies in measurements.

• Work less stressful with leveled workload; more time for innovation through use of automation. Ownership of work (documentation and localization as a feature).

Schneider Electric 5- StruxureWare for Data Centers : Operations Suite

How Agile benefited my company?

●Complete DCIM suite●Market leader in 3 years●“… comprehensive,

integrated and advanced DCIM suite.” the 451 group

●11 languages●2 major releases per year● x3 more localised projects

Workflow

Monday

• Exporting incremental changes, building kit (Automated, script that polls version control and creates translator’s kits + build & import scripts for Wednesday)

• Sending localization kit (Manual, mostly short instructions and priorities, communication)

Tuesday

• Vendor project management• Hourly translation

Wednesday

• Building files from kits (Automated, see Monday)• Testing of built files (Automated, mostly technical validity checks)• Automated fixes • Committing files (Automated)

Thursday• Bug fixing (Manual, based on scripted and human effort)

Friday• Improvement/Innovation projects

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Workflow

●No frequent drops!●Not even the automated ones

●Keep work in-house● Locate strings for translation●Wordcount●Pseudo-translate● Test pseudo●Only go for translation when it’s time

Translation

Pseudo Translation

Source

• Translate• Test• Fix

• Fix • Test• Pseudo-translate

• Estimate• Count• New content

WorkflowIntegrateprocessesIntegrateprocesses

Shorter distance between people – reduce steps

Automate as many steps as 

possible

Steady streamSteady stream

Builds SME and understanding

Improve quality and speed

Localization testing and 

bug resolution

Localization testing and 

bug resolution

Same “time zone”

Automate pseudo and localization testing

© 2011 Autodesk

Traditional Workflow: Localization Process

© 2011 Autodesk

Continuous Workflow

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Finance

●Typically two PO per project● Initial PO, based on estimate● Final PO, adjustment to real work

●Accurate forecast based on “team velocity”

FinanceEducateFinanceEducateFinance

Why is localization different

Agree on “workable” timeline

BudgetingBudgeting

Estimate volume for year

Consider per word and per hour pricing

Purchase orders

Purchase orders

No time for accurate 

competitive quotes

Reporting to validate work 

done

Payroll:• Engineering•QA• Product Marketing• Technical Writers

Purchasing• Localization Provider•One PO per major project• “tens” per year

Waterfall Payroll:• Engineering•QA• Product Marketing• Technical Writers

Purchasing• Localization Provider•One PO per “iteration” • “hundreds/thousands” per year

Agile

Follow the Money

Finance

• Since the hourly bandwidth (50% of word volume in 2011) is common to all internal customers and a predictable cost, and customer specific incremental changes (deltas) are in general very small (5-300 words), there is no benefit to per project/hand-off internal or external billing. The time savings in administrative overhead used towards improvements in quality, automation.

TechnologyStandards

&         Formats

Standards&         

Formats

Globalization Standards

File formats & Naming 

Conventions

Automation&     

Integration

Automation&     

IntegrationReduce steps, e.g. logging bugs in client 

system

Reduce manual steps

Control Language Assets

Control Language Assets

Central TMS

Central Terminology

© 2011 Autodesk

Automating the WorldServer Workflows

Process, technology and philosophy

• Single-sourcing, XML, TMX, variables

• Python: Building links between systems and tools, automated checks and fixes.

• Quality: Focus away from over-processing imperfections and irrelevant feedback to ensuring usability.

• Translation tools: Elimination of ICE matches and 100% matches essential, preferably by scripts through command line. Automated building important.

• Translation: Moving towards giving as much freedom to translator/vendor as possible, organizing innovation time for translators. Focus away from words towards interactions.

• TMS: Improved workflow, enabling self-organization on translation side.

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Technology●Documentation

●Emphasis on sharing●Means of agreement

●Planning●Plan for “project in general”●Communicate well in advance

●Have “white holes” in our plans

●Freedom● In defined limits

●Wiki● Internal – Plan, QA,●Customer – Doc, Support

●Agile planning tools●Continuous build system

●Social networking

Thank you!

For more information or if you just want to chat…• Mika Pehkonen ‐mika.pehkonen@f‐secure.com• Stanislav Kalianov ‐ Stanislav.Kalianov@schneider‐electric.com• Wayne Bourland ‐Wayne_Bourland@dell.com• Kåre Lindahl – kare.lindahl@vengacorp.com