> Story points translate to cost. Customers determine the value. They examine the cost. And they determine whether the value is worth the cost. Is that 5 cent nail worth 5 cents or is it the nail that'll save the project?
There is absolutely no evidence that story points actually correspond to cost in a product organization (as opposed to a contracting billable hours situation), because the long-term scope of a project is unknown. When does a project actually "end" with respect to its cost vs value production? Is this accounted for via story points? Are all of those things known when starting the first iterations? I would submit the answers to these are "we have no clue."
Something that does however correspond to cost is well, cost. Team's have a known salary burn rate, and this is completely independent of how many imaginary points they make. Any organization whose value output is being measured where two weeks is actually such a large timeframe that it needs to be broken down into more granular estimates is 1) delusional about the predictability of their actual value output and 2) pipe fitters working on easy, well-known features.
There are many ways of estimating projects as a whole that are equally as (un-)reliable for estimation and take way less time, and these can be coupled together with financial rationalization from the business. If two week increments can't have significant variance for the business to make a profit, and this business is in the extraordinarily high margin software industry, they're working on the wrong problems.
There is absolutely no evidence that story points actually correspond to cost in a product organization (as opposed to a contracting billable hours situation), because the long-term scope of a project is unknown. When does a project actually "end" with respect to its cost vs value production? Is this accounted for via story points? Are all of those things known when starting the first iterations? I would submit the answers to these are "we have no clue."
Something that does however correspond to cost is well, cost. Team's have a known salary burn rate, and this is completely independent of how many imaginary points they make. Any organization whose value output is being measured where two weeks is actually such a large timeframe that it needs to be broken down into more granular estimates is 1) delusional about the predictability of their actual value output and 2) pipe fitters working on easy, well-known features.
There are many ways of estimating projects as a whole that are equally as (un-)reliable for estimation and take way less time, and these can be coupled together with financial rationalization from the business. If two week increments can't have significant variance for the business to make a profit, and this business is in the extraordinarily high margin software industry, they're working on the wrong problems.