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Continuous Globalization

Continuous Globalization is the process of integrating internationalization (i18n) and localization (L10n) continuously into software development. It emphasizes making software globalization a concurrent development activity, rather than waiting for the completion of a sprint or release.

Attributes for successful Continuous Globalization include visibility, automation, and metrics. These are provided via a dashboard interface that measures internationalization code quality integrated with source code repositories. The dashboard also monitors changes to resource bundles that contain strings/interface messages that will need translation. Visibility provides insight into the i18n and L10n status of your code. Automation, via Globalyzer and Resource Manager saves time in both finding internationalization code errors and L10n file management. Metrics allow you to plan, track progress and improve.

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The Return on Investment for Continuous Globalization

According to a 2014 CollabNet value stream analysis, if a mid-sized enterprise has five development teams doing 20 sprints per year, they would execute 100 sprints per year. If each team works at a rate of five features per sprint, together the teams would produce 500 new features per year. For an enterprise developing 500 new features per year, two days of time saved per feature would translate into 1,000 days saved. Assuming (conservatively) a $40/hour wage per developer, this translates into $325,000 saved or a productivity increase of three persons per year.2 Continuous Globalization offers the same value, in terms of time and money, as continuous integration or other enhancements to agile.

Continuous Globalization FAQ

Why is Continuous Globalization important?

Traditional software globalization is messy and often iterative, with issues in the code and managing localization changes typically handled with many manual steps and test-centric processes that by their nature are performed late in the development cycle. This results in escalated costs and time delays for global customers. It’s a process that causes friction between development and localization. Continuous Globalization optimizes the effort with agile and other modern development cycles.

What is the focus of Continuous Globalization?

Continuous Globalization centers on supporting agile internationalization and localization. It is not focused on decreasing the per word translation cost. It is focused on reducing globalization development and management costs, simplifying globalization activities over many product development iterations. Continuous Globalization enables more predictive localization management, better quality and faster, more frequent global releases.

What about pseudo-localization?

Pseudo-localization is an important tactic in testing software for global readiness, and we provide that functionality in our products. However using pseudo-localization is just one approach. It does not provide complete testing coverage and does not direct the developer to exactly where in the code the offending issue is located. Static analysis processing from Globalyzer finds internationalization issues as they occur in the code for the developer – so it’s a faster, cost efficient and more direct way to find and fix issues.

How does the Globalyzer Suite support Continuous Globalization?

When integrated with source code repositories, the Globalyzer suite provides a rules-based system for static analysis of internationalization issues and changes to the messages and words in the user interface that will need localization. Development and localization teams have summary and detailed information on the global readiness of the code and the localization process. Developers can quickly fix internationalization issues during their current sprint. Localization tasks that otherwise involve manual management of files and scripts are automated providing a fluid flow from development to localization to translators and then back again all the way to the code repository. Management and team members see the global readiness of their application and automate and verify the localization update process.