Estimating Quality Documentation?

[SteveFJong -at- aol -dot- com]

Anthony Markatos <tonymar -at- hotmail -dot- com> asked, "[I]f quality documentation 
takes time and has a minimum number of pages, why do all the Technical 
Writing experts advocate estimating techniques based upon page count?" Not 
wishing to step forward as a technical writing expert, I still will respond.

At one level this is simply a flawed syllogism. The measure of document 
quality is not size, either short or long. I recently had this conversation 
with a product manager who thought we should produce only a quick-reference 
card for a product we're documenting, based on a card we did for another 
product. What could be better? I had to point out to him that the card was 
merely a supplement to a 100-page manual.

At another level, this question is interesting, because it illustrates the 
difference between product quality and process quality, which are separate. 
However you choose to measure the quality of a document, the process by which 
it was created must be measured differently and separately. To any manager 
trying to estimate time and resources, work output is a fundamental metric. 
In our profession, the output is pages (or their e-equivalent). I can hardly 
imagine any other way to estimate how long a project will take or how many 
people it will require (which are process questions).

          -- Steve

=========|=========|=========|=========|=========|=========|=====
Steven Jong, Documentation Team Manager ("Typo?  What tpyo?")
Lightbridge, Inc., 67 South Bedford St., Burlington, MA 01803 USA
mailto:jong -at- lightbridge -dot- com -dot- nospam          781.359.4902 [voice]
Home Sweet Homepage: http://members.aol.com/SteveFJong