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.
The key is to really break your scoping down to finite tasks...
feature by feature, aspect by aspect. The documentation effort for
just one feature can be broken down into many sub-tasks. The more
specific you are in your scoping, the more reasonably accurate it will
be, and you'll be able to definitively show the big chunks of work to
others, and perhaps get the clarification you need to trim your
estimates down or beef them up, as needed. But Gene's right, there's
no golden formula. The developer to writer ratio is a useless metric
(and I use the term 'metric' here loosely)... it's a ballpark, and is
only good if you're playing the right game for the park. Same goes for
pages per day.
On 12/27/05, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:
> The best tool for estimating is your own past experience with similar
> projects. While it is possible to come up with reasonable numbers
> for some hands-on production phases of documentation, most generic
> "rule of thumb" guidelines I have seen for estimating documentation
> resources per hundred pages or per developer are about as accurate
> as a contract bid from Halliburton.
--
Bill Swallow
HATT List Owner
WWP-Users List Owner
42.8162,-73.7736 http://techcommdood.blogspot.com
============================
I support Char James-Tanny for STC Secretary.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Now Shipping -- WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word! Easily create online
Help. And online anything else. Redesigned interface with a new
project-based workflow. Try it today! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
Doc-To-Help 2005 now has RoboHelp Converter and HTML Source: Author
content and configure Help in MS Word or any HTML editor. No
proprietary editor! *August release. http://www.componentone.com/TECHWRL/DocToHelp2005
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- infoinfocus -dot- com -dot-
