Goal setting for your locale

We work on two different cycles at Mozilla: a quarterly cycle (this is being posted in Q1) and a six week rapid release cycle. On a quarterly basis, the l10n drivers are responsible for setting goals for the progress they’d like to make on facilitating the localizer’s ability to get involved, the number of new locales we’d like to add to the shipping line-up, and the number of locales who, for one reason or another, have fallen behind and we’d like to help catch up. We attempt to make these goals based on what we assume to know about the l10n teams we’re working with, however, we’ve seen that we often don’t have enough visibility to accurately predict the number of new locales we’ll add to the shipping list or the number of locales that can catch up in a quarter. As you can imagine, these goals aren’t always met by the end of the quarter, largely because they don’t take into account the localizer’s schedule, commitment level, technical experience, or the l10n team’s goals. Well, we’d like to change that 🙂

This quarter, along with the l10n team health evaluations, we’d like to encourage all l10n teams to start setting quarterly goals with us and publishing them on their l10n team wiki page under this heading:

===Team quarterly goals===

What type of goals would a l10n team set?

Here’s an example of a l10n team’s quarterly goals:

===Team quarterly goals===
* Sign off on Firefox Beta channel by week 2 of cycle.
* Add Fennec to project's list and set goal for which release to ship 
fully localized Fennec.
* Catch up on Firefox Aurora backlog. Be ready to sign off and ship 
up-to-date localized Firefox desktop at version 22.
* Recruit 2 new localizers-in-training.
* Make sure all team members have profiles in Mozillians directory and 
are in both the l10n and l10n:[locale-code] groups.

How will this help my team?

Planning and goal setting not only help you and your team to be more organized and successful, but it allows you to identify areas where new contributors could pick up tasks and join the group. By publishing these goals on your team wiki pages, we’re able to see your efforts and help where we can. Plus, it helps us identify what excites and motivates you as a team. Maybe [insert motivator here, like competition, SWAG, events, accomplishment, etc.] makes your team excited to localize and proud to be part of Mozilla. Your transparent goals will help us to see that and respond in a more personalized manner to your needs.

Need help with goal setting?

If your team needs help setting goals, please reach out. I’m happy to help you focus your efforts and make goals that will improve your efforts. You can also explore the l10n teams directory and see what goals other teams have set and see if they also apply to you.

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