This course is aimed at participants with little or no prior knowledge of software localisation. Following a ½ day plenary session, the course will be offered in three streams, each of 1½ days duration.

Working in the Software Localisation Industry: skills, salaries, benefits

Ruth Alvey and Nicola Gosling, Consultants, CPL

Ruth and Nicola will provide an overview of the employment opportunities in the localisation industry for individuals with little or no experience.

The software publisher’s approach to software localisation engineering

Gloria Lorenzo, Engineering Manager, Siebel Systems

Gloria will discuss the software publisher's approach to software localisation engineering including: market entry, internationalisation, tools selection, defect find & fix cycles, quality process and customer satisfaction.

The evolution of technology in the Corel Localisation Process

The pace in which products need to be localised is at best hectic. What's certain is that each year the time given over to localisation of products will shorten and parent organization will become more demanding in insisting on simultaneous releases, higher quality and reduced costs. How do companies deliver on this ? What did Corel Corporation do during its 5 years in Ireland to reduce the lead-time to market from 60 days to 7? During that period, simultaneous release of all their products became the norm rather than the exception. How did they achieve this?

Based on his own in-depth knowledge of the Corel Localisation Process, Tony O'Dowd, previously Executive Vice President of International Product Development and General Manager of Corel Corporation outlines what techniques were adopted and how Corel matured their localisation process to achieve their highest performance rating yet, 5 languages of Corel DRAW 10 in less than 5 days.

Process and project management in a multinational and multilingual environment

Ray Loughran, Senior PD Manager, Lotus Dev.

Ray has significant experience as a senior manager in one of the world’s largest software publishers and as a lecturer at the Dublin Institute of Technology. In this module, he will focus on how project management works in a global company.

An overview of the project manager’s role

Ken Kelly, Manager, Proj Mgmt Group, SimulTrans

Ken will discuss how PM's drive and control projects. This will take in areas such as communication flow, financial tracking, scheduling, customer relations, vendor control and sales support. Useful tips on the do's and don'ts in project management will also be provided.

Localisation –specific Structured Project Management

Tom Connolly, Senior Consultant, ETP The Structured Project Management Company

Structured Project Management (SPM) is a Ten Step approach developed by Fergus O'Connell, Founder of ETP, to ensure that projects are successful. SPM has been specifically tailored for localisation over the last 9 years. Many companies in the industry worldwide have been trained in this approach. This course is a 1 day overview of what is normally a 3 day Workshop. Participants will learn the following:

- How to set up projects with success as a goal.

- Techniques for ensuring that all tasks are covered.

- Techniques for working with project teams.

- Simple rules of thumb and handy templates.

- Basics of costing.

- How to plan for the unknown.

- Techniques for day-to-day running of the project.

- Time management techniques.

- Techniques for multiple project management.

- How to learn from the past.

Software localisation engineering fundamentals

The winner of two of the LRC’s Best Thesis Awards and principle engineer in the mobile computing department of Lotus Ireland will share the essential lessons to be learned by every localisation engineer with participants. This will include aspects of best practice and process automation.

Alchemy Catalyst: foundation and advanced users' course

This full-day hands-on session covers two of Alchemy’s half-day professional training courses. Participants will receive standard training material and be brought from the foundation to the advanced Catalyst user level. At the end of this course, participants will be certified Catalyst users.

Desktop and client server applications: standards, reliability, multilingual issues, test bed design

Sean O’Grady, Solutions Development Eng, VeriTest

This half-day session will focus on a number of issues relevant in the context of desktop and client server applications. Among them standards, reliability, multilingual issues, test bed design.

Introduction to test automation

This is a one-day hands-on course that focuses on the fundamentals of Segue’s SilkTest automated testing tool. Drawn on Quality Automation’s experience with localisation testing, the course content includes understanding SilkTest object recognition; capturing a test frame; capturing window declarations; creating the test frame; recording and running testcases.

The products utilised include Segue’s SilkTest and QA Organiser. Following successful completion of the course, attendees will understand the benefits of using test automation; gain proficiency in the use of SilkTest; have hands-on experience of creating automated tests.

This course is intended for beginner users of Silk Test. Testing experience with GUI or web applications is not required, but may be helpful.