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Marianne wrote: While I have found many interesting articles on managing
documentation
projects, I was hoping some of you out there might share your suggestions
for the tricks of the trade. Any and all information would be appreciated!
Hi Marianne!
I work for Evergreen Packaging Equipment, where we manufacture liquid
packaging machines that fill and seal cardboard cartons with things like
milk, juice, fabric softener, etc.
Most of the large-scale projects I do are for new models that are mostly
based on a previous model. Since this is equipment and not software than
I'm writing about, I'm not sure how much help it will be to your project,
but thought I would toss you my 2 cents. :-)
The best method I have found to manage these projects is to sit down with
one or more of the engineers in an hour-or-so-long meeting:
They look through the sections of the existing model's manual, and mark
up what will be different for the new machine
I look at their markups and estimate how much time the changes will
take, asking clarifying questions as needed.
For minor textual changes (for which they have basically supplied the
text I will need), I allow 1/4 hour per page.
For changes that I will have to write up from steps on engineering
drawings, I allow 1 hour per 5 steps on the drawing.
For each change that will require me to interview the engineers,
assemblers, and testers, I allow 16 hours (some of those people can be
hard to catch, and there is more verifcation and re-write time needed).
For graphics changes for which they give me the drawing number, I allow
2 hours (4 hours if there is a detail view).
For graphics that they don't give me the drawing number, I allow 3
hours.
Then, I add up all the hours, and multiply it by 2 to allow for daily
firefighting and other distractions. :-)
And finally, I add one week for assembling the manual sections, front
matter, preface, etc., into a book, and another week for printing.
If a translation is required, I add 6 weeks for that.
Do I ever get this much time to work on the project? No! But it's a place
to start. :-)
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