TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Scope? (Don't laugh.) What do you mean? I'm going to document the
application.
I take it you think that part of what I said was wise and part was not.
I said "seems reasonable" because I didn't want to say that it was just
impossible to give an hour figure at this stage. And another reason was
that when I looked at the total dollar figure of the entire job, it was
over $8,000, and I thought to myself that a manual (user and admin), a
Help file, and technical specifications -- three documents -- for
$8,000 -- sounded about right. I suppose it's obvious that I have never
done this before.
How does one word a statement of work if the time involved is unknown at
the outset?
Is there a way to figure out the time per feature or something?
B.
John Posada wrote:
>> Was there a better way to handle it? I thought of posting my
>> question
>> before I made the comment, but that was yesterday and I concluded
>> that
>> I'd just see what you all would say after the deed was done.
>
>
> Bonnie...experience from 18 years of sales:
>
> After this statement: "> These estimates seem reasonable to me..",
> all the customer sees or hears afterwards is
> "bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."
>
> Go back to them later with a request for more money or time and
> they'll say "WHY!? You said our estimate was reasonable!"
>
> Besides...HOW could it seem reasonable to you? You know nothing about
> the application you are writing about....you haven't used it, right?
> No scope has been written, has it?
>
> =====
> John Posada
> Senior Technical Writer
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
>http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
ROBOHELP X5: Featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author
support, PDF and XML support and much more!
TRY IT TODAY at http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrl
COMPONENTONE DOC-TO-HELP 7 PROFESSIONAL: From a single set of Word documents, create online Help and printed documentation. New version offers yearly subscription service, Natural Search, Modular TOC Utility, Image Map Editor, Theme Designer, Context String Editor, plus more. http://www.componentone.com/doctohelp .
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.