RE: Documentation estimates

Subject: RE: Documentation estimates
From: "Robotti, Anne \(Carlin\)" <ARobotti -at- CarlinGroup -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:41:10 -0500


> I have heard of some metrics for technical editing. My
> understanding is that the metric used by a global software
> and o/s provider is 6 pages/hour; the metric used by a
> leading systems developer in Silicon Valley is 9 pages/hour;
> and the metric suggested by CMS is 1.5 pages/hour. These
> metrics are used for budgeting and project management
> purposes, sometimes without allowing for contingencies or
> pauses for queries.

I'd be very interested in hearing from *anyone* who can produce nine
pages of quality documentation from scratch in an hour, or even cobble
together nine pages of junky source. I think that estimate is absurd.

Maybe because I've always worked for start-ups and I've always been
sidetracked into QA and training materials, but sometimes I'm lucky to
get nine pages done in a WEEK on a new application. And then they redo
the UI and I have to rewrite it all anyway, so there you have that.

Another thing about start-ups though, is that as Jim said, we usually
work on the "How long will it take?" "That depends, when will you need
it?" system of documentation estimates.

On freelance projects, I've always taken a Gestalt view of the project.
I've never done an estimate that was only based on the number of
expected pages. And if I did, you can bet I wouldn't use anything close
to 9 pages an hour. Yikes!

Anne



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