Now that you know how firm your deadlines are, you know how to proceed to schedule your resources. There are two methods for scheduling resources. The first way assumes that your deadlines are firm, so it uses the last date as a starting point, and determines how much time each task takes, to get to a start date. Printing requires 5 days, so the guide must be released to printing by Monday, May 25th. Editing requires two days and two edits.
Revisions take two days.
The writer can make changes to the first draft and submit a second draft in five days. So, the schedule is from May 12-18 is used to write the second draft. The write has seven business days to write a first draft of a thirty page user guide. This schedule is pretty aggressive, has no room for graphics, for writers getting sick, and no fudge factor for equipment problems. Well, a good writer, familiar with the product, may be able to make it, but if you have a novice writer, with no knowledge of the software, and you still have to meet the deadline, you have to do something else to help this project along.