Re: The Black Art of Estimation

[Jane Chew <jane -at- PSG -dot- COM>]

Basic guidelines and industry standards are valuable, but the best
basis for estimating your projects is your own history from past projects.
Keep really detailed work records, so you know not only what topic
you were working on, but about how much of that time was doing screen
dumps or indexing or whatever.

When you do an estimate, you do have to invest a few hours in getting a
feel for the project.  (Sometimes the clients themselves resist spending
that time with you--I try to give them enough free advice along the way to
keep them interested.) I find that understanding the work style of the
company is at least as important as defining the technical and
documentation issues.  Then think about the projects you've done that were
the most similar to different aspects of this one and go back to those
records.  You might end up combining the writing hours at one place with
the time spent developing standards at another one and the review cycle
from somewhere else, for example.

This may sound like work, but it's not nearly as difficult as trying to
deal with a client who has been given a wildly inaccurate estimate.  The
whole idea is to generate repeat business, which greatly lowers your
overhead in the long run.

====================================================================
JANE CARRASCO CHEW       (503)266-4475
Principal, Apothegm Inc.
technical documentation services
jane -at- psg -dot- com                              URL: http://psg.com/~jane/


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