Localization To The Far East Case Study

Localization to the Far East - Case Study Aviram Eisenberg, CEO, Ignite

Agenda Off-Shoring Global Delivery Agile Development

Ignite Ltd
Ignite is an Outsourcing Boutique
Pure Play Software Development Company
Global Delivery Model (onsite-offshore)
Agile Development Methodology
Strong onsite staff (senior R&D Managers)
Five offshore centers (in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Mexico)
Tailor-made software development solutions

The Need for Localization - 2009
Global economy require global solutions
Current financial crisis drive ISVs to inspect their business models
Small to mid-size ISVs are shifting focus to the BRIC countries
While India does not require localization Brazil, Russia and China do
35% increase in localization projects started

The Customer
A mid-sized international software vendor
US management and marketing
Israeli RD center
Until 2008 focused only on the US and EU markets
A highly technical product targeting IT managers
High investment in trainings, hence expensive deployments
As financial crisis developed changed focus to the Far East market: China, India, Japan

The Project Scope
Deliver the Japanese-based version within three months
Over 60,000 resource lines
Over 3500 online documentation pages
Globalization infrastructure to be done by internal R&D staff
Translation to be done by external provider
QA: joint effort customer + provider
Acceptance to be done by a Japanese distributor

Global Delivery Model Marketing R&D Translation team? Test team? Acceptance

The Challenges
Where?
What is the offshore location best suited for this task?
What?
The project scope does not fit the time frame
How?
How do we meet the deadline?
How do we transfer knowledge in such a short time frame using globally distributed teams?

Where?
Japanese team and Chinese team
Expensive
R&D Bottleneck
Pure Chinese team
Translate English-Chinese first and then translate Chinese-Japanese
Cost-effective
Not according to customer priority
Belarusian team
Hybrid native speakers and linguistics team
Cost-effective
Same time zone as R&D

What?
Only three months for the Japanese localization project
Delivery dates to end-customers cannot be changed
Prioritize the requirements
Adjust the scope - not the delivery date
Initial scope included:
Installer
User Manual
The main admin component
A second and third deliveries included the rest of the components

How?
Even after the scope change – the time frame is still very tight…
Vertical work instead of horizontal one

Waterfall-based Localization Build Glossary Test Fix Translate Translate Test Test Fix Fix Translate

Agile-based Localization Fix Fix Test Test Translate Translate Translate Translate Fix Fix Test Test Translate Translate Build Glossary Translate Test Fix Update Glossary Translate Test Fix

Agile-based Localization (cont)
Test Automation:
Code level automation of resource occurrences in UI
Automate translation tests
String length comparison automation
String too long/short
Identify suspects using string length comparison automation
Wrong translation/Missing translation
Identify suspects using automated translation tests
Pinpoint the screens in which a resource is used using code level automation of resource occurrences

Knowledge Transfer
Testing team does not enough time to learn the software
Send QA manager from the customer site in Israel to Belarus
Attach a Belarusian senior tester to him
Spin Testing

Global Delivery Model Marketing R&D Translation team Test team Acceptance Requirements I18N Ready SW Translated SW QA Leader Defects Localized SW

Q&A Aviram Eisenberg [email_address]

Localization To The Far East Case Study

by Aviram Eisenberg on Jun 24, 2009

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