I am new to Pivotal Tracker and trying to learn how best to use it for our business. We are an app development consulting services firm. As you guys know, clients want to have an idea of total time and cost before they sign any contract.
How are you guys mapping your project on Pivotal to total hours and timelines? Any best practices? Pointers?
Right now my team and I have broke the project into stories (love how Pivotal gets us thinking on a much lower level) and have roughly mapped out points to hours.
- 1 - 1 hour
- 2 - 2 hours
- 3 - 6 hours
- 5 - 10 hours
Then we are basically thinking of 2 as a quarter day, 3 as 3/4 a day, and 5 as a full day or a bit longer.
I then calculate how many 1s, 2s, 3s and 5s we have to get a rough estimate of total hours. Pivotal gives me an estimated completion date based on default velocity (I know this can change). I then report the rough total hours, cost, and due date to my client. I do understand that this is agile and iterative where things change, but when people hire you as a consultant they want costs up front.