Software is an extraordinarily paper intensive industry. The overall volume of paper documents surrounding software projects is one of the largest of any manufactured product in human experience.... For very large military software projects, the total volume of paper documents can exceed 1,000,000 pages. What is astonishing about paperwork volumes for very large systems is that the specifications and technical documents may be large enough to go beyond the normal lifetime reading speed of a single analyst! Assuming a technical reading speed of about 200 words per minute, there are some systems where an employee could work for an entire 40-year career doing nothing but reading plans and specifications without ever finishing.

From Applied Software Measurement, 2nd edition, chapter 3, page 219.

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