Estimating a Mimic Project

[Doug Eaton]

I'm about to dive into Mimic, and, of course, Management wants some idea of how long it's going to take to make demos and tutorials. If anyone has a few general guidelines that you'd be willing to share, I'd appreciate it. I certainly accept the fact that "the creator" is probably the biggest factor in estimating creative projects, and I am just looking for some ideas to start with.

[RamonS]

From my experience, here a few things that determine how long it takes to create a movie:
- how difficult is it to perform the actions that are needed for the movie: easier tasks means easier work
- does the activity include text entry: you will mistype entries and you do want to use Mimic's text boxes assuming you can make the fonts look the same, in any case, text entry is more work than mouse clicks
- does the task require to create special data to start with: creating extra records and cases as well as getting to the point from where you want to start is part of the work needed
- how much work afterward is needed: effects, callouts, etc.
- how long is the entire move: longer movies tend to tax the system more and processes may take longer
- do you get a storyboard or do you have to write that yourself: if you need to come up with what to show and how to show it yourself the whole process will take longer. If you have an SME write up detailed step-by-step instructions things are easier for you
- how versed are you in using Mimic: if you need the learn by doing things take longer in the beginning
- how well do you know the feature to document: if the feature is new to you as well you first need to learn a bit about the feature to cover

Of course, each project is different, so there is not one way to determine how long it will take. But with whatever estimate you come up with, double it. You will need the extra time.

[i-tietz]

Perfect timing! I just finished my first movie ... well ... we finished our first movie, really ... sort of ...
the movie is approx. 11 minutes long and contains 126 frames.

I have three colleagues who worked with Mimic for the last two years, now we were two newbies. I installed the software about 2,5 weeks ago.

The other newbie wrote the storyboard by sort of copying another storyboard that existed before.
One "Mimic Pro" did the recording, mixing and cutting of the sound files (1 week).
I started making screens 2 weeks ago. "Making screens" sometimes also meant: editing them in a graphic software and staging the situation in our software to make the screen.
Then I had to put it all together, adapt time spans to sound, make cursors click or not click, replace a bubble, look at the content and give feedback to the storyboard writer ...
I suppose that now - with the intensive training of the past 2 weeks - something like that would take me 1,5 weeks.

Means: 2 weeks storyboard for a nebwie, 1 week sound for a pro, 1,5 weeks for an "advanced" to shoot the screens and put it all together.
...

[SteveS]

I seem to recall a guestimate that each minute of a finished movie takes about an hour of work time.

Up there with 5-10 hours pewr finished page of written documentation...

Still, for want of a better figure it can help for the first project. After that you can adjust, based on your requirements.

[RamonS]

A lot depends on how well the storyboard is written and how many elements need to be added that do not get captured. Also depends on how familiar one is with the application to document. I've worked once on an app that I knew the basics of. One storyboard was excellently written with all the steps needed. The other one was a list of bullet points of what the requester wanted to see. Take a guess which one took me much less time to complete. I'd be careful with per minute based estimates. I'd go more with per step based numbers or per frame. You can end up with three frames per minute or thirty, although with thirty I'd assume that not much gets added to any of the frames.
Estimating software related tasks is a thankless job. You always will guess wrong and then have to explain why. But if you come up with a figure, by all means double it before you tell anyone. You will need the extra time.