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<<At some point in my career I ran across a statistic regarding how long it
actually takes to create on page of technical documentation from scratch.>>
This would be an interesting statistic if you can find it, I'd like to know
too. But I would question the validity of any such statistic, of course, since
it would be difficult to know if or how it would apply to any given project.
Individual work styles differ as much as the complexity and demands of various
projects.
Nevertheless, I could give you a ballpark figure from my own experience on
several help projects: 4 hours, if the work was "from scratch". I think the
key phrase here is "from scratch". If you include time for interviewing,
writing, receiving feedback from interviewees, incorporating feedback, basic
editing and proofing. In some projects you might have a lot more to go on
(say, a previously existing version of a manual) than others, and the time
might be less. But if it's "from scratch", I'd plan for 4 hours. If the job
can be done quicker, so much the better, but frequently it cannot.
