Re: Measuring goals/benchmarking

[Alexia Prendergast <alexiap -at- SEAGATESOFTWARE -dot- COM>]

No flame taken -- I'm not easily offended. You raise some
good points.

As I mentioned in my last email, my bottom line is that
writers need to develop measurements (I hate the word
"metrics", since right now it suggests bureaucratic BS)
that are useful to them. These measurements will need to
be customized to the type of products documented, types
of information products produced, environment, etc.

Pages-per-day by itself is not a useful measurement. However,
how do you estimate projects? Usually pages-per-day multiplied
by estimated number of pages based on topic estimates. If you
pay attention to your history (which is all I'm suggesting),
you start to learn approximately how long it takes to produce
certain info products, and you also start to see trends in
differences in SOPs, etc. Again, as I said before, don't measure
this by the writer -- it encourages bad writing. And, remember
your goal -- this is not useful for performance reviews,
but it is for estimating, for example. When you take any
measurement, note the conditions -- complete rewrite of
existing material? updates? new book? complex or simple
product? And so on. Don't get too granular -- this measurement
is a rule-of-thumb thing. We've got page-per-day rules-of-thumb
for writing, editing, reviewing, etc. Useful, but again,
not the whole picture.

Thanks,
A.
--
Alexia Prendergast
Senior Technical Writer
Seagate Software
alexiap -at- sems -dot- com

>----------
>From:  Dan 'Fergus' Roberts[SMTP:droberts -at- panix -dot- com]
>Sent:  Tuesday, July 08, 1997 7:52 PM
>To:    Alexia Prendergast
>Subject:       Re: Measuring goals/benchmarking
>
>In article
><c=US%a=_%p=Enterprise%l=DURENT01-970708153312Z-7784 -at- durent01 -dot- smg -dot- seagatesoft
>ware.com> you wrote:
>: 1. Approx. average of pages produced per day
>I'd respond publicly, but I'm not subscribed to the list right now, and only
>read the list thru a ng. Anyway, back to your point...
>
>Number ofpages per day makes the assumption that all writers/projects start
>from scratch, which might not always be the case. For example, I can take an
>entire release cycle to update a doc from Version X to Version Y, when the
>changes that had to be included in the doc could have been minimal. Ie,
>adding a new command option is a quick deal (a few paragraphs, max), but in
>the process, I updated a 1000 pg book. After I get these few new paragraphs
>in, I'm done (say, in a week) and can move onto the next project.
>
>Also, this metric does not consider how much original work I can recycle.
>For example, I once had a project that had several group windows, each
>having similar menu bars and functions. To create documentation for window
>Z, I had a lot of groundwork done for me by my work on window Y (ie, the
>File menu bar is basically the same, therefore a quick cut and change
>created a few extra pages for me).
>
>Also, your metric does not consider complexity of project. For example, you
>can probably churn out doc for a new dialog box in half an hour, or for a
>completely new window in a week. But, if you consider the doc pages produced
>by time period by project, your metric can get hosed.
>
>Also, page count does not take into account the content of pages. I can
>create 2 pages real quick (for my current project) by showing an example of
>HTML code, a screen shot of the web form that the HTML created, and a screen
>shot of the result of the user's action. 2 pages in less than an hour ....
>damn, I'm good <g>.
>
>Anyway, I dont mean to flame, and I dont mean to rag on you specifically, I
>simply wanted to point out a few flaws in the page/time metric. If you want
>to forward this msg to the list, go for it (and if you can suggest solutions
>for the problems I mention, that'd be even better!).
>--
>Dan 'Fergus' Roberts
>droberts -at- panix -dot- com
>dan_roberts -at- ibi -dot- com
>----------
>From:  Dan 'Fergus' Roberts[SMTP:droberts -at- panix -dot- com]
>Sent:  Tuesday, July 08, 1997 7:54 PM
>To:    Alexia Prendergast
>Subject:       Re: Measuring goals/benchmarking
>
>also, and I nearly forgot <g>, the page/day metric does not take into
>account downtime (the review time for developers, the time you had to spend
>in department meetings, the time ya had to spend on other projects, so on
>and so forth).
>
>
>--
>Dan 'Fergus' Roberts
>droberts -at- panix -dot- com
>dan_roberts -at- ibi -dot- com
>

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