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Panel Discussion: Estimating Writing Project Costs | |
Notes provided by Ester Walden
The March 23rd BWA meeting featured a panel disucssion of Estimating Writing Project costs. Panel members were:
- Linda Woods – Independent contractor for 8 years with 15 years of technical writing experience
- Michael Cocannouer – Documentation manager at Xilinx, Inc.
- Hollie Rogin – Writer and usability analyst at Leopard Communications
Linda Woods spoke from the perspective of an independent writer. She gave out copies of her Hardcopy Manual Effort Estimate sheet and described how she calculates the cost of a writing project. She gives her clients a high and a low estimate to allow for the minimum and maximum amounts of material that may be needed for a project. For example, instead of estimating 100 pages, she would give a low of 90 pages and a high of 110 pages. She figures on 2 hours per page but notes that the industry standard is 2 to 5 hours per page. Woods commented that when taking a project requiring new skills, you should plan to either bill the client for your training or learning time or bill the client for your sub-contracting costs for that portion of the project.
- Plan on spending about 1 hour preparing your estimate.
- Have a project agreement clause that states that any project changes will mean a re-estimate of costs.
- Bill for each aspect of the task.
Michael Cocannouer manages writing projects in a corporate setting. He uses a bottom up approach to identify milestones and delivery dates. He identifies the information gathering requirements, writing requirements, review requirements, testing requirements and the final milestone, the delivery requirements. He then builds in a 50% contingency factor. Cocannouer uses a phased delivery approach to meet the needs of both upstream customers (such as marketing and engineering) and downstream customers (such as localization and manufacturing). Phase 1 includes books with minor updates. Phase 2 occurs 1 to 2 weeks after phase 1 and includes books with moderate updates. Phase 3 occurs 1 to 2 weeks later and includes books with considerable updates or new books. Other tips Cocannouer shared:
- Take JoAnn Hackos’ class Managing Your Documentation Projects as a basis for learning project estimation.
- Meet deadlines. If a deadline cannot possibly be met, he recommended either: re-negotiating the deadline, or requesting prioritization.
Hollie Rogin spoke from the perspective of the agency setting. She stressed that estimating is an inexact science at best but writers should work with clients to define closely what is needed. She explained that writing for the Web is substantially different from writing for other mediums and that Web writing can have different purposes. Estimating marketing copywriting is different from estimating technical writing in that different writing skills are used and different amounts of research and brainstorming are needed. She stressed the importance of a detailed project plan so that if the project scope changes, the writer or agency can utilize change orders. Rogin provided some questions Leopard Communications asks of the client and of themselves when estimating projects.
- What kind of site does the client want? Presence? Technical support? Electronic commerce?
- Has the client defined a marketing niche and messaging? Can we help them define their messaging?
- How much content does the client already have? How much do they need?
- What is the existing content like? Is it Web-ready, or does it need substantial rewriting?
- If you’re creating new content, who will provide direction for you?
- Is there a Web project manager at the client’s site? Will you have a single point of contact?
- Who approves the copy? If there is more than one reviewer, who has the final say?
- How many revisions will be included in the project estimate?
- What are the criteria for issuing change orders?
The panel then entertained questions. Some of the questions and comments:
How do you keep a review schedule solid?
- Break a project into manageable chunks
- Give the client a project schedule
- Give the client a cover sheet with limitations on reviewing
Are there variations in writer productivity?
- Yes, it is in a bell shaped curve
- For maximum productivity, writers should plan to take a 20 minute break for every 90 minutes of writing
In a project with phases, how do you define phases?
- Talk with the designer of the product
- Talk with the marketer
Do you have online help writing tips?
- Present the client with a linear model
- Use the client’s FAQs as a starting point in developing content
Contact information:
- Linda Woods - lkw@indra.com
- Michael Cocannouer - Michaelc@Xilinx.com
- Hollie Rogin - hrogin@leopard.com
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