Redesigning TAPP for developing critical understanding for managing global virtual teams

Translators and technical communicators increasingly perform their work as part of global virtual teams (GVTs). To prepare students for developing critical understanding for such work, instructors can assign readings, asking students to reflect on the importance of building trust (Crisp & Jarvenpaa, 2013), cultural intelligence (Li, Rau, Li, & Maedche, 2017), and strategies for managing multicultural teams (Behfar, Kern, & Brett, 2006). More important for developing critical understanding, however, is the experience of managing a “real” Global Virtual Team (GVT). Research questions for this work include the following: How does attention to and work with international translators influence critical understanding for managing GVTs? and How does situatedness influence critical understanding of the many requirements and factors in a translation project? This article provides a brief theoretical background to the project and then details our redesign of the standard collaborative formats of the Trans-Atlantic & Pacific Project (TAPP) and associated assignments to focus on student development of critical understanding for managing GVTs. We include identification of themes from a subset of literature relevant to student practice in managing a translation team; description of the TAPP redesign in which University of Minnesota (UMN) students serve as project managers of teams of University of Trieste (UT) students practicing translation; and a brief summary of results from deployments of this model during 2019 and 2020. We conclude with emphasis on the need to redesign the TAPP format to meet evolving learning needs of students.