Where does ‘Business Value’ come from?

In the XP Game you get Story cards with a Business Value number. In the game, teams compete to release as much ‘Business Value’ as possible by implementing the game’s stories. Planning is very easy: developers estimate the cost of each story in points; the customer orders the stories per Business Value/Cost.

If only it were that easy in real life.

How many of you have Stories with a Business Value on them? The projects I’m currently working on don’t have a Business Value estimate (yet). How are stories prioritised? By ‘gut feeling’, by risk, by deadlines… It’s not always clear. How are projects and releases prioritised?

Come and play the Business Value Game

To explore those questions, Vera and I have designed the ‘Business Value Game’. Like the XP Game, it’s a friendly competition. This time the players are salespeople who have to deliver features to customers to earn as much money as possible for the company. They have to keep their customers happy or risk losing customers.

The game is shorter and uses fewer props than the XP Game. No balloons, just a bunch of cards that represent customers, customer requests and stories. Like the XP Game, the Business Value Game will be made freely available for download, using a Creative Commons license.

The first tryout of the game will be held on August 13th at Cap Gemini Belgium in Diegem. See the Belgium XP wiki for more information and registration for this free event.

See you there.

Posted by Pascal in agile, presentations