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Subject:Estimating Hours/Page From:Win Day <winday -at- CML -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 3 Feb 1995 16:59:59 -0500
Greetings, all you techwhirlers. I have a question...
I'm new to the contracting game. I'm working on a series of software
manuals on a reimbursable basis (thank heaven!). I've never done software
manuals before, and I just started estimating the time to complete one.
The manual will be around 230 pages including index. JoAnn Hackos, in her
recent book "Managing Your Documentation Projects", recommends using
about 5 hours per page. That seems really high to me. Does anyone out
there have a feel for this sort of thing?
I should mention that the company I'm contracting to has never hired a
tech writer before; their engineers and programmers always wrote the
documentation in their spare time. Sometimes the docs lagged behind
product release by as much as a year!
