RE: Pricing a project without access to the software

["Hemstreet, Deborah" <DHemstreet -at- kaydon -dot- com>]

Black boxes are Fun! <not>

I had to do that for a company I worked for though once, tell them how
long I thought it would take to document an uncompleted project based on
the story board.
I completely agree with Bonnie. But if you cannot get an answer, you can
do what I did for one project:

1. Sit and think about what they did and did not tell you.
	(For the project I worked on, they mentioned translations, but
not how many languages, nor if they wanted me to prepare graphics as
well)

2. What are the loop-holes? What are you missing? Can you estimate a
dollar cost? For example - if they want an installation manual (which
they forgot to tell me about), that would cost xxx, as opposed to a
functional SW manual, etc...

3. Base your estimate on 5 hours per page. Based on the complexity of
the screen captures, you should be able to determine how many pages will
be needed to explain one capture.

4. What about error messages and troubleshooting? Again, given them a
guesstimate for that as well.

5. Finally, give them a +/- 25% buffer and advise that while they could
benefit (you will do it faster), the lack of info indicates that they
will probably fall into the +%25 range...

I think others can give good tips as well. The main thing is to make an
estimate based on what you DO know, and then add a section that says:

IF you need X - it will cost xxx.

And don't forget to give a list of what YOU require from them (like a
computer with the SW installed, that they pay you to come to their site
to learn how it is installed, etc. and etc.)

Maybe I'm too demanding, but that is what I would do...

Hope this is helpful to the discussion.

Deborah


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