# 3.2 Creating a work plan for voice data collection
Work planning means organizing tasks, resources, and timelines to complete a project well. When collecting [voice data](#user-content-fn-1)[^1], a work plan helps you to manage complex steps. These steps involve people, technology, quality checks, and community involvement, especially in low-resource or challenging settings.
Key parts of a work plan include:
* clear project phases
* milestones with goals you can measure (like “5,000 prompts uploaded” or “10 hours of recordings validated”)
* a detailed timeline to show the order of tasks and which ones depend on others (for example, contributor onboarding depends on the platform being ready)
* resource planning so that you use staff, software, and funds efficiently.
Ways to be more efficient in a work plan include:
* running tasks in parallel when possible. Examples from [TWB Voice](#user-content-fn-2)[^2] projects include:
* assessing the capacity of the community and starting to engage with them while setting up the projects and creating text prompts,
* recording and validating the data in parallel,
* preparing licensing while data collection projects are in progress.
* building in extra time, especially with [low-resource languages](#user-content-fn-3)[^3]. With the TWB Voice pilot projects, extra time was needed:
* to create and clean text prompts because resources were scarce,
* to engage and train contributors who were new to digital tools,
* to check the quality of the recordings—only those who had recorded at least one hour of speech were allowed to rate others, so the pool of available raters was small relative to those recording.
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**Key tips: How can I make a practical plan for potential risks?** |
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| Unexpected delays and challenges are common in low-resource language projects. You should include a risk management matrix in your work plan to help you plan for these.
The basic principle of a risk management matrix is to:
- identify potential risks: for example, delays in the available texts, bugs on the platform that stop you from collecting data, or low community engagement.
- assess each risk by how likely it is and its impact using a scale (often low/medium/high) to assess how likely the risk is to happen and how much it would impact delivery of the project.
- plan what to do to prevent each risk, and what steps you will take if it happens.
You can download a basic example of a risk management matrix for voice data collection in low-resource language settings. This template is based on experience from the TWB Voice pilot projects. You can adapt it to suit your specific project. Many project management tools also have built-in risk management features.
|
[^1]: **Voice data:** Audio recordings of human speech. These recordings capture the acoustic features of spoken language, such as pronunciation, speaking patterns, and rhythm.
[^2]: **TWB Voice:** A platform for collecting voice data. It was developed by CLEAR Global, who also own it. Users can make voice recordings to help with active data collection projects in TWB Voice by [signing up to the TWB Community](https://translatorswithoutborders.org/join-the-twb-community/). The main goal of TWB Voice is to help to develop voice technology for speakers of marginalized languages. For example, by creating the voice datasets that are needed to build language models for TTS and ASR.
[^3]: **Low-resource language:** A language that has limited written or recorded materials and is rarely found in digital tools, data, or technology. This means that technologies like speech recognition or machine translation are not available for the language and are difficult to build. This may be due to a lack of written content, digital resources (like websites or videos), or support from organizations that develop language technology.
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