Business value and story points for a multi-pay-rate group

[zilla62]

We want to use Greenhopper for Scrum. One of the issues we're struggling with is how to reconcile buisness value or story points with real $$$. Our group has different "trade groups" (TG) and each TG has a different hourly rate of pay. For example, graphics TG costs $55/hr, our C++ SW developer TG at $60/hr, and QA group at $45/hr. Say we have a user story with a story point of 1, or 1 ideal day, or 8 hours. In my real world then, the cost to implement this story will differ with the two cases.

Case 1:

Graphics TG sub-task: 3 hrs = $165

SW dev. sub-task: 4 hrs = $240

QA sub-task 1 hr = $45

Total: $450

Case 2:

Graphics TG sub-task: 2 hrs = $110

SW dev. sub-task: 5 hrs = $300

QA sub-task 1 hr = $45

Total: $455

As a project manager I have to give a monthly estimate of $$$ for our activities. So even though I have my product backlog that estimates the story point of 1, I can't really tell what the cost is until the sub-tasks are broken. How can I make this work?

[boardtc]

This can't be done with a generic formulae. If you have a high performing team with a known velocity. depending on the use story content it may be possible for you to relate that back to Business Value.