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Subject:Re: How to . . From:Richard Sobocinski <"Richard_G_Sobocinski%~WHC207"@CCMAIL.PNL.GOV> Date:Thu, 26 May 1994 09:51:00 -0700
Probably the best way to keep from being surprised by additional,
complex features is for the witers to be accepted as members of the
product development team. This requires political skills, social
skills, and psychological skills, professional behavior, and luck.
A writer to engineer ratio of 30:2 (15:1) is too high to result in
quality documentation. We have surveyed enterprises that produce
documentation ranging from superior to ordinary. We find that the
superior enterprises have ratios like 2:1 and in a few cases 1:1.
Ordinary enterprises tend to have ratios in a range from 7:1 to 4:1.
Ratios higher than 10:1 tend to produce mediocre to simply awful
documentation.
John Brinegar
Phoenix, AZ
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Wow! Where do I sign up? The project I'm working on has a
writer to engineer ratio of about 1:20 (one of me to a whole
bunch o' 'dem).