TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Re: Rule of thumb for doc time based on development time?
Subject:Re: Rule of thumb for doc time based on development time? From:John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:Faith Weber - ESC <faithw -at- esystem -dot- com>, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 9 Dec 2005 10:17:17 -0800 (PST)
> Have you ever worked with any rules of thumb for estimating
> documentation time for a project based on the estimated
> development time? If so, what were they? How well did they
> work for you?
No, and I wouldn't even attempt to try. In fact, it's probably an
inverse number. By that, I mean that if development spends ALOT of
time on creating a truly inteligent feature with lots of analysis, it
will probably take a short period of time to document it. OTOH, if
they just slap it together, it is going to take MUCH longer to
document it because you have to deal with something that is not
intuitive and needs lots of qualifications.
There's too many variables. Imagine a feature that requires accessing
many databases with many joins, and includes a number of complex .net
assemblies in the background, just so you can select a dropdown list,
pick a value, and press a submit button.
OTOH, a different functionality may require one DB, one SP, one .dll,
and you still have a dropdown list. One took a team of 10 developers
30 days and one took one developer a week.
How do you quantify this?
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
"Well, you have to know these things
when you're king, you know." -
--King Arthur of Camelot.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Now Shipping -- WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word! Easily create online
Help. And online anything else. Redesigned interface with a new
project-based workflow. Try it today! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
Doc-To-Help 2005 now has RoboHelp Converter and HTML Source: Author
content and configure Help in MS Word or any HTML editor. No
proprietary editor! *August release. http://www.componentone.com/TECHWRL/DocToHelp2005
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- infoinfocus -dot- com -dot-
