Continued from page 1
Estimate Project Duration & Resources
Once you’ve completed
requirements spec stage, you should know enough to accurately estimate duration and resource requirements for remainder of project. You should also update “Documentation Project Plan” document with this information.
Estimating is always a difficult process, and there’s not really any sure-fire way of getting it right. Mostly it depends on job and your experience. However, following are some guidelines that might help you.
If you have records from previous projects, you might simply be able to estimate project duration based on these. You should try to compare old subject material and topics with new to make sure that old times will be applicable to new project. On p.174 of Managing Your Documentation Projects (1994), Hackos provides some potentially useful guidelines for comparing complexity of various documentation projects.
If, on other hand, project is entirely new, you will have no records to use as a guide (unless you have managed a similar project in past). In this situation, project estimates will be very difficult to make.
One possible method for estimating is:
1.Compile a list of tasks, and record how many there are in your list.
2.Compile a list of concepts that must be documented, and record how many there are in your list.
3.From your list of tasks, select 10 that are representative of rest (in terms of complexity, expected length, status of relevant development, etc.), and of same granularity (e.g., you can write a single topic for each).
4.From your list of concepts, select 3 that are representative of rest, and of same granularity (e.g., you can write a single topic for each).
5.Estimate number of pages per topic.
6.Document these tasks and concepts as a trial, ensuring that you track:
•the total time taken to complete each topic. •the portion of this time that was due to product change or indecision. •the number of pages per topic. •the number of extra, unexpected, but necessary, topics you became aware of as a result of documentation. Keep a separate record of number for both task and conceptual topics.
TIP: Make most of your trial doco. Even though you’ve chosen a design through design prototyping, you can use your documentation sample to test usability of your documentation approach. By presenting sample to an audience sample, you can determine whether you’re heading in right direction with your doco (i.e. whether you have interpreted and implemented your user research results correctly).
7.Determine average time taken per page for task and for conceptual topics.
8.Apply this average to rest of topics in project. (Topics written early in project normally take longer due to lack of information and a higher number of technical issues. This means topics written later in process will probably take less than average calculated here. However, this will normally be offset by extra time product changes will incur during project life-cycle.)
9.Estimate time per subject area based on average time per topic.
10.Estimate number of extra, unexpected, topics that will likely become necessary during course of rest of project.
11.Allow for training, work prac maintenance, holidays, sick days, meetings, usability testing, production (approx 6 weeks turnaround time for printing a 1000 page manual, including proofing), evaluation, and evaluative testing. Each of these elements will vary according to nature of project, and they will tend to take far less time than actual writing. That is why specific guidelines are not provided as they are for writing.
Figure out how long you actually have to do it, then how many writers you’ll need to get it done during this time. Draw up a project schedule using something like Microsoft Project, identifying useful milestones and project deadlines. Some of your milestones might include:
•Prototype Testing Complete •Work Pracs Written •Design Specs Written •First Draft Complete •Second Draft Complete •Localisation of Second Draft Complete •Final Draft Complete •Localisation Complete •Documentation Ready for Release •Production Complete •Project Evaluation Complete •Post-release Usability Testing Complete
It is important to note that you will have milestones before this point, but because they occur prior to formal scheduling stage, they don’t need to be included in this schedule.
Write Work Pracs & Design Specs
Along with user research, work pracs and design specs are perhaps easiest project elements to overlook, especially for a small team. However, even within small teams, it is helpful to maintain both.
Work pracs are for ongoing things, that affect day to day working environment of team (e.g., How to use your documentation tool, How to release your help, a style guide, etc.). Design specs are for documenting one-off things like how we actually plan to go about this thing. This will include such information as what tools we’ll be using, what each will do, and mechanics of how it all fits together. e.g., How VSS project will work, how everything should be managed, multi-user issues, how it will be localised, etc.
To be continued… See part 3 of this article (http://www.divinewrite.com/docoprocess3.htm) for information on writing your user documentation.
* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com for further details or more FREE articles.
