Formula for Tech Writing Lead Time?

[John Posada]

--- Courtney Collins <courtney_shay_collins at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Is anyone aware of a formula for how many words/pages a Tech
> Writer can produce in a given period of time? I am being asked to
> take on additional manuals and upper management wants some numbers
> to justify additional head count that will be needed. I can
> probably come up with an estimate based on what we produce today,
> but I was wondering if some kind of standard already exists.

Courtney...think about it. There are so many factors that determine
how much a writer can write, that I couldn't even begin to figure our
how to quantify it. Off the top of my head:

Level of experience
Quality of the effort
Level of SME support
Writing environment
Subject complexity
Familiarity of the subject
Definition of "Produce" (first draft? Packaged book?)

Any one of these factors can affect to a factor of 2 or 3 just on
their own.

Besides...would my formula determine how quickly you work? If just
because my formula said you should be producing 20% more...would it
make it so?

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer

"I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."