Marlene Nicolas (asker) Jul 10, 2014:

Thank you for your input. I will follow your suggestion. Thanks to everyone.

John Holland Jul 10, 2014:

@ shoublak There is a reason why you could not find "operationalization" in traditional dictionaries. It is an uncommon technical term related to scientific research design, for example in psychology.

Here is a definition (from the first link I posted earlier):
"Operationalization is the process of strictly defining variables into measurable factors. The process defines fuzzy concepts and allows them to be measured, empirically and quantitatively."

It would be incorrect to use this term in your translation. One of the two alternatives in the answers would be much better.

Marlene Nicolas (asker) Jul 10, 2014:

I posted that question when I could not find the word "operationalization" in the traditional dictionaries, and "implementation" did not feel right to me, since it is a "testing" phase. I will go ahead and use operationalization. Thank you to all of you for your prompt answers.

nweatherdon Jul 10, 2014:

@john Oh yeah, you're right. To operationalize a variable. I think that's where I picked up the term in the first place :)

John Holland Jul 10, 2014:

@ njweatherdon This proposal seems a bit risky to me. "Operationalization" has a specific meaning as a technical term:
https://explorable.com/operationalization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operationalization

nweatherdon Jul 10, 2014:

I use operationalization directly in English.

You have an idea. You figure out ways to make it work. Then you operationalize it. Transform concepts into actionable things, then do them. Implementing is taking a plan and doing. Operationalizing is taking concepts and putting them into something that you can implement more directly.

Perhaps not everyone who uses this word uses it in precisely this way, but I don't think you'd get many people outright disagreeing with it.