atw: Re: Software company tech writers
- From: "Lewington, Warren" <Warren.Lewington@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "'austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:19:21 +1000
Ngaire, this is a difficult question to answer because every tech writing
situation is different.
You need to look at:
The kind of work the technical writer is producing for (how technical, dumb,
easy or hard to use intuitively, or in between, is the nature of the technology
requiring documentation).
The audiences being written for - which is different to the "kind of work."
You might be producing for technical people alone, or converting highly
technical information for really dumb people to read, to producing a range of
documents to suit a range of situations, with a range of audiences.
The range of information (user guides, help, installation guides, technical
programming or engineering etc)
The total size or volume of information (software - work on a basis of total
number of screens/windows/dialogs, and multiply that by 1.6 to 2.0 hours per
window for an indication of the hours to do basic (and I mean "basic"
documentation).
The output and the sources the output is being produced from (single source
or an old fashioned multiple document print model?).
The deadline and schedule tightness must also be considered.
I recommend you get "Managing Your Documentation Projects" by Joann Hackos if
you are at this stage of your career. It will help immensely and provide you
with a firm, easy (oh so easy) to understand base line to work from when being
challenged to come up with these answers. If you are in Sydney, you can borrow
mine until you get yours.
Twenty five engineers is the kind of number of people I am more than
comfortable dealing with when I am writing general manuals and procedures, and
guides and business collateral and so on. And that could include everything
from a single page document through to design and production of a multimedia
(video, sound, stills animations and so on) presentation delivered by internet.
There are times when the load is high, and times when you can practice and
employ innovation to things.
Two BAs, two testers and eight developers, with good FDS documents, firm use
cases, solid project planning and little scope creep should be manageable for
one good technical writer to output useful info (including a catch up to
currency, then building to thoroughness - but most small software companies
won't allow that much quality anyway - they will tolerate just enough peanuts
handed to user monkeys to keep them out of the support line's hair). Assuming
there is some form of single sourcing, and some documentation output variation
then it would probably be a good fit.
HTH.
Warren.
________________________________
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ngaire Eyers
Sent: Friday, 19 August 2011 12:59
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Software company tech writers
Hi all
Just wondered amongst the array of experienced people, if I could get an idea
of what the 'norm' is?
That is, for a software company of 25 people, two ongoing major projects, in
terms of technical writer expectations - how many technical writers would the
expectation be?
There are two BAs, two software testers and 8 developers.
Cheers
Ngaire
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