Time Estimation Question

[Letty Smith <lsmith -at- CTILIMITED -dot- COM>]

I have searched the archives and wasn't able to come up with a good answer
to this question. Hopefully, some of you out there have faced a similar
situation and can give me some advice.

I am working on editing a set of online help documents for a software
product.  The editing is a comprehensive one, designed to:
     Fix grammar errors
     Improve the clarity
     Spell check
     Reformat long documents into managable sections
     Include screen prints of processes and buttons
     Provide consistent naming conventions
     Check that each field on the software matches the documentation
     Run each process that the software can do, and make sure that the
     software actually does it the way that the documentation says it does.

The last item is the one that is stumping me.  This is very complicated
software, and running any one of the processes takes somewhere between 1
minute and 3 hours (depending on how much previous data I have to load and
create for testing).  I have had tests take a whole day to finish, when the
system was feeling buggy.  They have also taken 20 seconds.

Does anyone have a good rule of thumb as to how to estimate how long this
sort of editing should take?  I'd like to be able to present my manager
with some guesstimation, as I'm starting to get the "gee, what are you
DOING with your time" looks.   Currently, there is no method being used to
estimate how long it should take, so any help would be an improvement.

How about for this sort of edit *without* the software testing?

Letty Smith


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=