Selling Agile Contracts Part II – The List of Contracts

Okay, so we kind of concluded fixed-price contracts are evil but what are the alternatives?

Before we move on, let’s get the terminology right. Erik van Oosten rightfully commented we might have to start using the terms fixed-feature and fixed-term on top of fixed-price. To take it to a bit more general level, in a project there are three basic variables: a collection of features (or scope), the deadline (or schedule) and the budget (or resources). I’m specifically naming them scope, schedule and resources as these are the exact same terms Scott Ambler came up with in his article titled The Broken Iron Triangle Software Development Anti-Pattern. In his paper, Scott argues that ‘refusing the recognize the implications of the iron triangle’ is ‘one of management’s more popular approaches to hamstringing an IT project’. He goes on to say ‘we really need to question the ethics of “fixed-price” IT projects‘, which confirms what we’ve already settled upon.

The next thing he says (and this is completely obvious, if you’ve ever encountered an agile project done right) is you should be prepared to vary one (or even two) of the factors involved. Vary the scope, schedule or the resources that is, based on what you encounter during a project.

That’s nicely said and all, especially if you’ve won the client’s trust already, but what are you going to tell a customer that has a budget of say €100k for which you’ll quite likely implement something nice that suits his needs. The client puts out an RFP and invites three suppliers to answer to the RFP. You now it’s best for the client to end up in a situation where in cooperation with the client you can vary either scope, schedule or resources, but you have to win the client’s trust first.

I think the answer lies in the response to the RFP plus a certain amount of risk you’re willing to take as supplier to win this deal and this is where the list of contracts comes in that I got from Martijn Dashorst of Wicket fame. The list, by Alistair Cockburn provides various options for drafting a cooperation between the client and the supplier, varying from fixed-everything to fixed-nothing.

I’ll be digging through this list in the coming weeks to see if there’s anything usable. In the meantime, one thought I had was to be upfront with a potential client and offer him the various options for drafting an agreement (or at least, the ones we feel comfortable with). I’m not sure this will work in all scenarios. There are plenty of RFPs for example that require you to come with a response without being able to discuss possible directions with a client (how weird that may sound).