Re: Guestimating effort

[Sue Ellen Adkins <sea -at- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

D Gardner asked:
> > OK, how does one geustimate the length of time needed for a doc?
> > Especially if it's a cdrl and all you have is the cdrl description
> > from the sow?

Start by checking to see if you've produced a similar document before.  Look
for documents which served a similar purpose as the CDRL.  A message recently
gave hours/page estimates for various types of effort.

One word of caution on quoting effort to produce a CDRL.  Don't confuse the
cost of producing a CDRL with the cost of producing a document that would be
needed to complete the project even if it wasn't submitted to the government.
For example, the government could delete the CDRL requirement for test
procedures, but you'd still have to produce them to adequately test the
product.  The question I'd pose to managers was "Are you hurt if the
government doesn't approve the hours to produce the document?"

I think that out of approximately 120 CDRLs in the last proposal, only the
cost of producing the financial ones was completely identified as the cost of
the documentation.  Approximately 20% of the technical CDRLs required
additional effort (usually minimal) to make our documents conform to what the
government required.

I hope this helps.  Please excuse typos and foggy writing.  It's late.

Sue Ellen Adkins
sea -at- netcom -dot- com