Post by habiba123820 on Nov 6, 2024 10:23:41 GMT
Sipping on some brandy by the fire. A log fire crackling in the grate and the coziness of a winter cabin. Peace... that's how I think people imagine location maturity: Some kind of paradise or ultimate place that people arrive at when they do everything right in their location departments.
All processes and responsibilities are clear, the tools work perfectly, the delivery model is flawless, and any issues are quickly and effortlessly resolved. As tempting as it may seem, striving for this will end up creating more problems than it solves.
1) The Holy GrailSalvation and eternal life.
Most of us would take it if we had the chance. No more pain or worries that arise from our fragile and ephemeral existence. The same principle applies to the chaotic space of localization. Localization is driven by international growth, and growth is inherently messy. If you are growing, that means you are pushing boundaries. If you are pushing boundaries, that means you need new processes and new functions to meet those requirements. The ultimate dream for anyone involved in localization is to get rid of the mess.
While things can and should become more organized wordpress web design agency and predictable, it is irrational to have a romantic idealization of what maturity looks like. Maturity is still messy. I would argue that maturity is more complicated.
Maturity means you have the strength to tackle the tough questions. And once you tackle those questions, there are tougher questions waiting just around the corner. It’s a process with no beginning and no end. The Holy Grail archetype, where we somehow reach the promised land of location, only adds confusion to our quest.
2) Self-fulfilling paradigms
When you have a hypothesis, you seek to prove or disprove it through testing.
If you have biases, however, you will try to conduct tests in ways that further entrench those biases. So if your bias is that you have reached maturity and that maturity means there is no more chaos, that means you are more likely to dismiss chaotic data points as disposable or dispensable outliers, rather than things that really should be addressed.
So, as an example, let’s assume we have a preconception that our localization practices are mature. Elements that point to the contrary, such as long time to market, high overhead costs, lack of opportunities to improve, are more likely to be ignored rather than addressed thoroughly.
3) Maturity implies a lack of humility
If you consider yourself mature, it probably means you weren’t that mature to begin with. The same goes for humility. Most humble people I’ve met will rarely describe themselves as humble. Instead, they will either be humble or act humble. When maturity becomes a romanticized concept that we strive to achieve, we lose sight of the fact that the essence of maturity is the appreciation that there is so much more to be learned and accomplished.
There is no localization paradise, no place where all problems have been solved. There are places where a state of equilibrium has been reached and the market/business demands are adequately met by the solutions offered by localization. But more often than not, this is simply because demands are not growing or changing fast enough.
4) Maturity can be a sign of aging
In this sense, reaching maturity in localization, or any kind of maturity, can be a clear sign of aging. Not old in the traditional sense of age, but old in the sense that no new learning or challenges are introduced into a given system. Romanticized maturity can simply mean that the ecosystem you are involved in is not growing fast enough, is not evolving fast enough, or that someone is artificially setting the bar lower than it should be. Think about it. We are far from understanding how to fairly compensate linguists for their work.
All processes and responsibilities are clear, the tools work perfectly, the delivery model is flawless, and any issues are quickly and effortlessly resolved. As tempting as it may seem, striving for this will end up creating more problems than it solves.
1) The Holy GrailSalvation and eternal life.
Most of us would take it if we had the chance. No more pain or worries that arise from our fragile and ephemeral existence. The same principle applies to the chaotic space of localization. Localization is driven by international growth, and growth is inherently messy. If you are growing, that means you are pushing boundaries. If you are pushing boundaries, that means you need new processes and new functions to meet those requirements. The ultimate dream for anyone involved in localization is to get rid of the mess.
While things can and should become more organized wordpress web design agency and predictable, it is irrational to have a romantic idealization of what maturity looks like. Maturity is still messy. I would argue that maturity is more complicated.
Maturity means you have the strength to tackle the tough questions. And once you tackle those questions, there are tougher questions waiting just around the corner. It’s a process with no beginning and no end. The Holy Grail archetype, where we somehow reach the promised land of location, only adds confusion to our quest.
2) Self-fulfilling paradigms
When you have a hypothesis, you seek to prove or disprove it through testing.
If you have biases, however, you will try to conduct tests in ways that further entrench those biases. So if your bias is that you have reached maturity and that maturity means there is no more chaos, that means you are more likely to dismiss chaotic data points as disposable or dispensable outliers, rather than things that really should be addressed.
So, as an example, let’s assume we have a preconception that our localization practices are mature. Elements that point to the contrary, such as long time to market, high overhead costs, lack of opportunities to improve, are more likely to be ignored rather than addressed thoroughly.
3) Maturity implies a lack of humility
If you consider yourself mature, it probably means you weren’t that mature to begin with. The same goes for humility. Most humble people I’ve met will rarely describe themselves as humble. Instead, they will either be humble or act humble. When maturity becomes a romanticized concept that we strive to achieve, we lose sight of the fact that the essence of maturity is the appreciation that there is so much more to be learned and accomplished.
There is no localization paradise, no place where all problems have been solved. There are places where a state of equilibrium has been reached and the market/business demands are adequately met by the solutions offered by localization. But more often than not, this is simply because demands are not growing or changing fast enough.
4) Maturity can be a sign of aging
In this sense, reaching maturity in localization, or any kind of maturity, can be a clear sign of aging. Not old in the traditional sense of age, but old in the sense that no new learning or challenges are introduced into a given system. Romanticized maturity can simply mean that the ecosystem you are involved in is not growing fast enough, is not evolving fast enough, or that someone is artificially setting the bar lower than it should be. Think about it. We are far from understanding how to fairly compensate linguists for their work.
