The Golden Ratio 75/25

[Andrew Plato <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

"Bonnie Granat"  wrote 

> My comments were in response to a generalization made by another poster,
> Eric, and I still maintain that 75/25 is a bad research/writing ratio.

75/25 is a guideline not a law. I would say that most projects should start
with this ratio as an estimate and adjust accordingly. 

The 75% time spent researching does not mean you are only learning and not
writing. Some of us are capable of learning and writing simultaneously. Or
discussing a concept with a person, learning it, then going back and writing up
a description of it all in the same day.

When I think of 75/25, I think that 75% of a project's time is devoted to this
iterative process of learning, writing, revising, and diagramming. The
25% is the pure logistics of the project - editing, fixing styles, reviewing,
using templates, fussing with XML stuff, etc.

My original point was that many writers use 50% or more of their time on pure
logistics and leave very little time to learn, write, digest, etc.

As for bosses saying "you're wasting time." This is the kind of complaint that
comes from poor communications and/or alignment of expectations. As Eric Dunn
pointed out, some projects clearly have more research time than others. Hence,
the good writer knows how to properly and diplomatically set expectations with
the PHBs of the world. This includes the ability to size-up a project, figure
out the complexity of the material, and estimate time. Sure, estimate mistakes
happen. But a good writer is never off by too much. When there is a sizable
disconnect in expectations, one can only assume that either bosses weren't
listening or writers weren't communicating.  And as is most often the case, its
usually a little bit of both. Furthermore, PHBs may be insufferable but if you
fail to set expectations with them, then its not surprising that they'll act
like PHBs.

So, the real trick here is to estimate properly: 

If the project is a documentation production job (or a top-to-bottom re-write)
then 75/25 is probably about right.

If the project is purely an editing or desktop publishing job ("pretty up these
docs please") then the ratio should be shifted, even inverted to 25/75.

The ratio is a place to start. A guideline for writers and managers to
understand the priorities of a documentation job. I think its an important
ratio because many writers have an inbred desire to invert this ratio. The
logistics of a project (fonts, templates, styles, etc.) is considerably more
"fun" than the content. And groups like STC devote an overwhelming majority of
their focus on the "logistical" side of tech writing, thus creating a skewed
and misleading example of writer's priorities. 

Therefore, writers and managers need to ask themselves what are the priorities
of a project and estimate (set expectations) accordingly. If writers drift off
expectations, then a realignment needs to happen. If the ratio was determined
to be 75/25 and the writers on a team are working more like 10/90, then clearly
- heads need to roll.  

Andrew Plato




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