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Subject:RE: Pages Per Day From:"Gordon McLean" <Gordon -dot- McLean -at- GrahamTechnology -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:19:56 -0000
Does it matter?
Give them an upper and lower bound (based on 2 days and... 4?) ... It'll
still be way more than the 4 days you've been given.
I'd also give them the list of what you COULD achieve in that time, so they
can make a judgement call between the two (and possibly a third option
halfway between the ideal and the impossible?)
Good luck.
Gordon
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+gordon -dot- mclean=grahamtechnology -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+gordon -dot- mclean=grahamtechnology -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- c
om] On Behalf Of Jim Barrow
Sent: 27 March 2008 14:10
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Pages Per Day
The software project that our tech pubs team has been working on has
suffered from frequent delays and setbacks. As writers, we knew that we
would have a tight deadline in regards to generating the end user
documentation. During yesterday's "kick off" meeting we discovered just how
tight this deadline is.
A little background information to build the suspense first.
This software application is huge - a basic ERP system with four separate
modules. There are 50-75 use cases per module. In my estimation there's
going to be ~500 pages of documentation.
Back to yesterday's meeting.
The project manager - and one upper-manager - gave us (are you ready for
this?) four days to complete the end-user guide. The amusing part was that
they scheduled five days to decide on a table of contents, and two weeks for
review.
Four days.
I'm in the process of composing my response to this timeline but, short of
responding with "dear project manager, since you were obviously under
massive amounts of narcotics during yesterday's meeting," I'd like to come
up with something that's a little more like metrics and hard facts.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I seem to recall that the tech
writing standard for producing documentation that is ready for publication
is 2-3 pages per day. Seems a little low, but that's what I recall. Does
this sound correct to you?
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