RE: Estimating time

["Sean O'Donoghue (EPA)" <Sean.O'Donoghue -at- ericsson -dot- com -dot- au>]

I have to agree, hand in a quote that says you will be writing at the pace
stated by Hackos  and you are unlikely to ever see any projects come your
way.....and become unemployable - however, and here is the absolutely
kicker, hand in a quote that says you can do it in less time is probably
wrong.

Rather just have as an addendum to the quote for the writing - that
additional time will be needed for reviews/inspections, gathering
information from SMEs (subject matter experts) and time to do revisions of
areas of functionality that change during the course of the project -
obviously this can't be estimated at this time and will have to be
calculated as the project progresses.

Really sadly, I find that in the end the rate of delivery on an entirely
"new development" project of documentation is close Hackos calculation. But
by god, they don't want to hear that - so humour them ;-)     

regards and thanks, 
Sean O'Donoghue-Hayes
sean.o'donoghue -at- ericsson -dot- com -dot- au
(61) (03) 9301-1695
 
EAA/N,
Melbourne Central, Level 49,
360 Elizabeth Street,
Melbourne 3000



-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Byfield [mailto:bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, 20 September 2001 12:07 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Cc: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Estimating time


"Beilby, Margaret" wrote:

> The industry average is 5 hours/page (1.6 pages/day) for printed
> documentation (Hackos: Managing Your Documentation Projects) and 4
> hours/topic (2 topics/day) for online documentation (Hackos: : Managing
Your
> Documentation Projects and Deaton & Zubak: Designing Windows 95 Help: A
> Guide to Creating Online Documentation).

The only trouble is, these figures are so heavily dependent on the writer,
the
type of writing, and the circumstances that they are virtually meaningless.
And
I can't help but suspect that anyone who wrote at these rates regularly
would
soon be unemployed. They may be ideal, but most documentation is rarely
written
under ideal circumstances.

For my own purposes, I tend to calculate time according to three main
audiences:
end-users, tech-support, and programmers; on the whole, I need the least
time
when writing for end-users because I need less information to meet their
needs.
When I work with other writers, I try to schedule according to my knowledge
or
best guess of the other writers' individual speeds.

--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177



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end

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