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Re: Estimating a Project - A real lulu

Subject: Re: Estimating a Project - A real lulu
From: "Sonja Waller (SWUS)" <Sonja -dot- Waller -at- SMALLWORLD-US -dot- COM>
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 13:43:55 -0600

In a previous life, I was a communications director at a publishing house. Frequently I had customers bring those kinds of deadlines in. In the beginning, we tried to do it. What I learned is that customers like that never change their crisis status. They will ALWAYS bring work to you in a similar fashion. So, the way we got a grip on it was to tell them, prior to the work being done, that it would be triple the normal cost. They usually freaked out. It worked. They quit bringing us crisis work.

Sonja Waller
Sr. Technical Writer
Smallworld Systems, Inc.
Communications Business Unit

TEL: 303.268-6163
FAX: 303.779-9945

Email:
sonja -dot- waller -at- smallworld-us -dot- com

-----Original Message-----
From: temoore -at- BELLSOUTH -dot- NET [mailto:temoore -at- BELLSOUTH -dot- NET]
Sent: Friday, August 06, 1999 1:32 PM
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: Estimating a Project - A real lulu

I had a client contact me yesterday to discuss doing a training manual.
I have exactly 8 days to finish the manual and get it to the printer.
Here are the details:

Rough text will be provided in handwritten format that will need to be
edited for consistency and grammar.
12 chapters totalling an estimated 100 pages.
120 screen shots provided in bitmap format.
Import screen shots into document and add callouts explaining items
contained on screen shot referencing instuctions.
Word template provided.
No index at this time.
Document must be done in Word (this is not negotiable to my client, so
please don't say Do it Framemaker!!!)

By my own personal estimates, this can't be done in 8 days. What do you
guys think? Have any of you had a similar deadline? What was your
experience and the result? Were you successful?

Thanks so much.

--
-----------------------------------
Tracey Moore
Technical Writer/Web Site Designer
-----------------------------------
Web Potatoes
www.webpotatoes.com

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