formula for time estimates?

[Chinell, David F (GE Indust, Security)]

Felice:

Listen, I'm a complete novice when it comes to this stuff, but I think you need to start with a formula and some benchmark factors, then refine your formula and factors based on experience.

Here's one formula you could start with:

(Work Hours) = Pages x (Page Factor) x (Page Difficulty Factor)

or

(Work Hours) = (Words x (Word Factor) + Figures x (Figure Factor)) x (Material Difficulty Factor)

We expect a page of text to take between 2 and 8 hours to produce, depending on material difficulty, availability of SMEs, whether it's a rework or new material, etc. We expect a figure to take about four times longer than a page, but there are similar modifying factors.

Bear