The Problem With Keeping It Plain And Simple? (take II)

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Tony Markos replied to my original post: <<I noticed that the last part 
of your e-mail address is "ca" (sorry, I forget what technically the 
last part of an e-mail address is called).  If it stands for 
California...>>

Nope: "Canada". That would be the lesser-known 13 states north of the 
border. <g>

<<Your article on metrics is very informative 
(http://www.geoff-hart.com/resources/2004/metrics.htm)>>

Thanks!

<<You state that we all know that it is easier to explain a simple 
concept in 20 words than in 10, yet, on the other hand, it has been my 
expereince that  performance measurement based on a pages-per-hour 
rules (I attended a STC special meeting on estimating where a 
pages-per-hour focus was firm gospel).>>

I wouldn't overgeneralize. It's certainly common, and you'll hear the 
loudest complaints from those who are forced to use it, but by no means 
is it the rule--those who don't use it tend not to complain, that's 
all. Some managers who don't know any better do use this kind of metric 
for semi-good reasons: for example, if you know that last years' 
documentation was 500 pages and took 250 hours to write, then as a 
crude guess, your writers need to hit at least 2 pages per hour to 
produce this year's version in the same length of time. Of course, that 
trivializes the work we do, but if you have no better way to estimate a 
project, I suppose it's better than nothing.

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Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
www.geoff-hart.com
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