The Translators are coming…..

Photo credit: Howtogeek.com

It’s the end of week five and I must say this semester is moving along very quickly. This assignment seems to be taking up a lot of my time, especially when trying to co-ordinate people’s efforts. Although I am repeating myself, it has been a stressful and frustrating experience so far.

Having assumed lead roles at the beginning of the project, both Fionnuala and I seem to be the only project members concerned about completing the document as our deadline looms. Despite previously attending workshops on campus at UL, I have not spoken with nor met Fionnuala. We have, however, developed a “virtual” bond as we both strive to finish this assignment. We suggested to the project group that we create a Whatsapp ™ group, however, only Fionnuala and I were the only members who exchanged mobile phone numbers. In hindsight, a WhatsApp™ group should have been created during the first week of this project. It would enable real-time communication, resulting in quicker decision making.

Most notably, our U.S. project members do not seem overly concerned about this project nor the impact of them not contributing to it. Andrew assumed responsibility for creating graphics and promised to upload a finished document last Sunday (Feb 19^th), however, a week later there hasn’t been any communication from Andrew!.

As a result, we missed the deadline (Feb 20^th) for sending the document to our French translators. Fionnuala contacted me early on Tuesday morning (Feb 21^st) and asked me to completed Andrew’s tasks. Upon completing these tasks, I sent the documents via email to our French translators, also copying Fionnuala on the mail. Noting that the U.S. project members are on a break from March 13^th – 20^th, I asked our translators whether it would be possible for them to return a translated document in advance of these dates. My reason for this was both Fionnuala and I would be the only members available to modify the graphics and layout of the translated document before the March 20^th deadline. The translators replied indicating it would not be possible as they were informed they have three weeks to return the translated document.

Understandably technology doesn’t always work and some people may be uncomfortable using collaboration platforms. Jenny reported that her university email address doesn’t work and to use her Gmail account instead. It seems so far on this project, the U.S. students prefer to communicate using Slack and the French students prefer emailing me directly. Perhaps the French students do not feel comfortable posting online when not using their first language. The project now lies in the hands of the translators and we wait for the returned document. Using my experiences of this project so far, I will be asking them for regular updates in case Fionnuala and I will need to translate the document ourselves!.

The more the merrier!

I am glad to report this week has been the most productive so far. With our Université Paris Diderot translators due to return to college next Monday, our priority this week was to have a draft ready for them upon their return.

An important lesson learned this week was that some people will not be proactive when working on a project. They may even be reluctant to assume any form of responsibility on their part when working as part of a group project. As a result, the workload must be given to other project members who already completed their given responsibilities.

A project manager must be diplomatic when distributing these additional tasks to other project members who are already actively engaged in the project. It is important not to inundate project members who are already cooperative.

Within Team 8, both Fionnuala and I seemed to be the only project members keen to begin a draft of the instructions. As there was little activity on Slack I decided to email all team members. Jenny replied stating she couldn’t find an invitation to join our Slack site in her university email account. As a result, I also sent the invitation to her Gmail account. This incident reinforces the importance of gathering the correct contact details of all project members at the start of a project. This glitch meant that we were without Jenny’s services until this week, hence it impacted our schedule.

Upon completion of the second draft of my instructions, one U.S. project member, Andrew, offered to create graphics for my document. Katie also offered to create the graphics for Fionnuala’s document.

By the end of this week, all project members had finally joined our group in Slack. Andrew also offered to take on Katie’s responsibilities, should she not be able to complete her tasks. Project members were now offering advice to each other and willing to take responsibility for project tasks.

I look forward to next week when our French project members return and we have a team full of collaborators!.