Reprise: 1,000 Hrs of Dev.=?Hrs Doc

["Dennis Hays/The Burden Lake Group, Ltd." <dlhays -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Thanks to all for responding to the question I posted last week regarding
how many doc hours to plan for 1,000 hours of development. The answers were
"you can't" to 10:1.

This question came about when the project manager of my current assignment
asked me about an actual estimate. It seems as a small team (including 1
writer) is developing the RTS (Radiological Training System) portion of the
application. This new development will be dovetailed into the current
development. A few weeks ago, I sent the writer my detailed specifications
and a current chapter in FrameMaker format. From this, he has the look,
feel, and base upon which to build his doc (User Doc only). All he has to do
is write--I've done the design and handed him the master pages and tag
library. What he will eventually produce is one chapter for the User Guide
I'm writing.

The estimate was for 2400 hours--1000 or so hours for the application
development and approx 1400 for the doc. The project manager thought the
figure was somewhat high but he didn't have any idea how to gauge it.

The system is a SCO Unix platform and an Oracle Forms GUI application.

Again, thanks for all of the postings and if anyone wants the compilation of
answers, tickle me at <dlhays -at- ix -dot- netcom -dot- com> and I'll send it directly.


 Dennis Hays, The Burden Lake Group, Ltd.
 Voice:  518/477-6388  Fax: 518/477-5006
 E-Mail: dlhays -at- ix -dot- netcom -dot- com
"Write with fire; cut with ice."