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Subject:Re: Ratio - Development to Documentation Hours From:Sandy Harris <sandy -at- storm -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 10 Sep 2001 21:11:36 -0400
kris -dot- seguette -at- convergys -dot- com wrote:
> I've been asked to look for information regarding estimating documentation
> (user guides, training manuals and materials) time according to system
> development time. My reaction is that it doesn't make sense, but I don't
> want to tell the "powers that be" that without checking. I've searched the
> Internet and the archives, but haven't found anything that is a direct
> ratio between the two. The closest I've come is percent of total budget.
> Has anyone heard of this method?
Sometime in the mid-80s I saw a document discussing this. Of course by now
I've forgotten the reference and most of the details.
It was from one of the dwarfs in "IBM and the Seven Dwarfs", old mainframe
companies. I think Honeywell, but am not entirely certain. It was not a new
publication even then. I think late 60s or early 70s.
They had done a survey on the ratio of documenters to programmers in various
large projects at large companies.
In all cases except one Honeywell team, one writer could support between
3 and 6 programmers. The Honeywell team was getting 9 to 1 with a (for the
time) radical new methodology. All documentation from spec to user manual
was online. Writers, tech support and developers all had email. Support
forwarded common questions, and developers' answers, to the docs dep't.
Of course, the report was done by the team using these methods, so it
may have been a tad biased.
Also, I don't think it covered training, only system documentation.
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