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Lyn,
You have 17 years of experience and I have 21. I'm sure
we've both been in this boat a number of times. I've had
CEOs admonish, "You can't drive *every* release through
Susan--you'll kill her!" and have earned titles like "Queen
of Insta-Docs" and "DocMachine" for my troubles. Yes, a
seasoned writer can do better; I once put together a CORBA
API doc set (about 400 pages) in three weeks -- granted, I
was a little younger and had better stamina back then. There
wasn't a whole lot of time left for sleeping/eating.
But the real world isn't full of Lyn Worthens and Sue
Gallaghers and John Posadas (and please don't feel slighted
if I've left you off this list). The real world is full of
Dan Gallaghers and lone-tech-writer-as-first-job newbies
and every possible skill level in between. Quoting a
published metric has its place and its advantages --
particularly where a junior writer is concerned -- even if
you only use it to scare project managers into
reasonablness.
I once worked for a pubs manager who insisted that every
schedule was based on industry metrics -- altho I think he
used 2 ppd and it was software, not hardware. And in a dept
of 8 writers and editors with varying skill levels, the
estimates were pretty-much right on, taking Murphy's Law
and other variables into account. While I don't insist on
using that metric for my own writing, as the head of a dept
I have, because I've had to take my writing team into account.
Star Trek - The Search for Spock
Cpt Kirk - Mr. Scott, have you always multiplied your repair
estimates by a factor of four?
Cdr Scott - Certainly, Sir. How else can I keep my
reputation as a miracle worker?
>
> From: Lyn Worthen <Lyn -dot- Worthen -at- caselle -dot- com>
> Maybe I've spent too much of the past seventeen years putting out fires, but
> Dan's two weeks seems a lot more like the real world than Hackos' 8 hours
> per page "industry standard" does. Think about it in the context of what
> you've produced over the past two or three years (generically speaking to
> anyone reading this). Would you still be employed if that 200+ (or 400+) doc
> set you wrote had taken 200+ (or 400+) days?
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