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Subject:estimating project time From:Anne Halseytechwriter <ach -at- TOMICHI -dot- STORTEK -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 23 May 1994 14:34:09 -0600
Regarding Marilyn Gelman's queries on estimating project
time:
I concur with any/everyone who said NEVER allow yourself to
be placed in that spot. However, as one who has been endlessly
harangued with "...But we won't hold you to it; we just
want a SWAG on how long you think it might take ..." here's the
timing my department uses.
New Manual
----------
8 hrs/page for first 75 pages (text, art, tables, photos)
4-8 hrs/page for remaining pages in manual
actual time spent for prework (initial research, liaison
activities, outlining, estimating, and developing
a schedule)
Revising Existing Manual
------------------------
3 hrs/page for new material or major revision to existing
1.5 hrs/page for minor revision
.1 hrs/page for 'pickup' on existing manual paste-up art
(no change except for page number)
Illustration
------------
8-32 hrs/page for complex new line art; foldouts equal 2 pages
1-2 hrs/page for major correction to existing art
.5-1 hr/page for minor correction to existing art
4 hrs/page for simple line art (max - could be less)
4 hrs/page for photographic art (max - could be less)
5 min/page for manual pasteup (yep - sometimes we have to)
6 min/page for running bulk PMTs and trimwork
Illustrated Parts Catalogs
--------------------------
40 hours to generate
Each project lead writer is given the discretion to adjust these
hours as s/he sees fit based on experience level of the team,
complexity of the information, and stuff like that. But, basically,
these numbers work fairly well.
The trick, of course, is to guesstimate the volume of pages you'll be
dealing with. Most of us do the seat-of-the-pants thing based
on years of experience, familiarity with the technology, and the
manual set being devised. Where I work, we are in the process of developing a
standard manual 'suite' for our product lines; if the product is a
tape storage device, for example, there is a defined suite of ten
manuals we are prepared to generate. For whatever reason, the
powers that be on the project may elect to only have us produce
six of those ten potential books. However, based on statistics/metrics
gathered over years of generating books, we know the average tape
subsystem maintenance manual is 160-210 pages; knowing that, we
can ballpark the writer and illustrator hours necessary to produce
the 'average' maintenance manual. Assuming one carries a cheat chart
around with the suites and average page ranges defined, this will
allow us to respond intelligently to those endless requests for
SWAG schedules.
anne halsey
sr tech writer, storagetek
anne_halsey -at- stortek -dot- com
