RE: Pricing Documentation and Estimating Timeline

Subject: RE: Pricing Documentation and Estimating Timeline
From: Steven Schwarzman <StevenS -at- amdocs -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 14:02:18 -0600

(Kathleen Jay asks for help in pricing and building a timeline for documentation)

Kathleen, if you know how to estimate, schedule, and price training, I think you're practically there already for documentation. I use essentially the same formulas for both, with just a few changes due to different units of measure. (In training, the unit is lessons; in documentation, it's tasks; in help, it's topics.) See the archives for my post last June 5 about estimating projects. The basic idea is break up the job into all its bits and pieces, count 'em up, and apply a metric (multiplier) to estimate how long the whole thing will take, based preferably on past experience or, if you have no statistics, industry standards. Once you get experience doing this, you can adjust up or down based on various factors that you know will affect the project.

Now, if you want to go beyond an estimate into a schedule, a copy of MS Project or similar tool will help nicely: plug in the effort (that's from the estimate you just made) and resources for each task, mix in any constraints (like vacations, holidays, partial availability of resources due to other projects, whatever), and you'll get the expected duration.

Finally, as to pricing, why not bill your writer out at the same rate as the programmers in your software company? We do. If this is going to be fixed-price, take your estimates and add a nice contingency (maybe 25%) to cover the added risk.

Steve Schwarzman

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Collect Royalties, Not Rejection Letters! Tell us your rejection story when you
submit your manuscript to iUniverse Nov. 6 -Dec. 15 and get five free copies of
your book. What are you waiting for? http://www.iuniverse.com/media/techwr

Have you looked at the new content on TECHWR-L lately?
See http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ and check it out.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


Previous by Author: Do you include a sentence identifying the dialog name?
Next by Author: RE: job interview with tests
Previous by Thread: Pricing Documentation and Estimating Timeline
Next by Thread: Questions about a 600 page manual


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads