Re: Pecentage of techwriters in relation to other employees

[FB -at- POINTDUBLIN -dot- CCMAIL -dot- COMPUSERVE -dot- COM]

     Ron,

     you could poll the writers on this list! Here's a start:

     We have eight people in our pubs department, but because of all the
     other tasks we do, we have only about three-and-a-half fulltime
     writers of our software manuals. We also do interface design, Web site
     design and maintenance, design and layout of marketing materials,
     training, and user group stuff.

     There are over 25 software developers in the company. And overall we
     have about 120 employees worldwide.

     That makes the ratios and percentages:

     3.5:25 or 13 percent writers to developers

     3.5:120 or 3 percent writers to other employees

     As for what the optimum is? don't know. These numbers are working
     quite well for us at the moment. But of course they might not for
     another company. There are so many variables! For example:
     * length of software design and production cycles;
     * emphasis given by company and customers to documentation;
     * length and type of manual design, production, and distribution
       cycle;
     * ability of developers, of writers;
     * management style within the company;
     and a myriad others.

     Hope this helps,
     Fionnuala Broughan
     fb -at- pointdublin -dot- ccmail -dot- compuserve -dot- com



______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Pecentage of techwriters in relation to other employees
Author:  INTERNET:ron -dot- rothbart -at- documentum -dot- com at CSERVE
Date:    13y03y96 16:24

Does anyone have or know where I might get the following information:

Average or optimum number/percentage of techwriters in relation to
engineering employees and/or total employees at software firms.

Number/percentage of techwriters in relation to engineering or total
employees at some specific software firms.