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

zilla62 August 15, 2011

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?

1 answer

0 votes
boardtc
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November 11, 2012

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.

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