Many software development organizations work within the bounds of contractual agreements where the limitations imposed by the “Iron Triangle” of fixed timelines, budgets, and scope challenge their ability to embrace change and focus on value delivery. Agile practitioners often comment that agile contracting is a difficult problem, but proven solutions are rarely presented. Rachel Weston and Chris Spagnuolo offer some tools they have used in their own agile contracting work to help agile practitioners deal with different contracting scenarios while promoting agile practices, protecting the development organization, and still providing value and protection to the client’s organization. Through a combined workshop and facilitated collaborative session, Rachel and Chris present new agile contracting tools that can be added to your toolbox. You will gain a deeper understanding of the problems associated with agile contracting as well as practical solutions for dealing with contracts in an agile manner.

1. Agile Contracting - Agile 2008 - Chris Spagnuolo and Rachel Weston Agile Contracting Challenges Proposals and Marketing Non-agile competition Sales and marketing don’t understand agile Purchasing office review of proposal Unrealistic budgets/schedules Risk Financial risks for both clients and contractors Exposure risk for clients Change Management Fixed scope contracts while welcoming change Contract negotiations and change requests Fixed delivery date for specified functionality Conflicting Client Practices Non-agile client reporting requirements Required joint development teams Invoicing requirements Client Involvement Client not able to handle their responsibility Client organization can’t handle the pace of agile Delayed acceptance feedback loops Lack of attendance at reviews/demos Low user testing Stand-ups without client Product owner involvement Lack of client focus Product owner not representative of stakeholders Contractor Responsibility Distributed teams Inconsistent iterations Faking agile Getting the client involved Project Closeout Out of budget The definition of done…done. Poor transition planning

2. Agile Contracting - Agile 2008 - Chris Spagnuolo and Rachel Weston Agile Contracting Strategies Proposals and Marketing Hit the waterfall problem upfront in proposals Train sales and marketing in agile Introduce agile on smaller pilot projects Educate in your proposals Use the agile engagement roadmap Cite agile statistics Risk Propose a shared risk model and demonstrate the benefits of this to the client Change Management Focus on bigger boxes, looser scope contracts Opt for flexible scope over T&M when you can Define scope boundaries with product vision, product roadmaps, and release plans Understand and use your velocity to provide either scope or schedule estimates Build in slack with full disclosure Conflicting Client Practices Build agile education for clients into your contracts Clearly define the overhead for non-agile reporting requirements Client Involvement Clearly define client roles and responsibilities in your contract Identify the product owner role in the contract Project Closeout Provide a clear definition of done in your contract Determine and provide the cost of knowledge and tech transfer in your contract

3. Agile Contracting - ADP 2008 - Chris Spagnuolo and Rachel Weston Agile Contracting/Proposal Language Sample In our agile approach, budget and time select the requirements that can be delivered. Our clients have the ultimate project control and may declare their satisfaction with the application as a whole at any time in the development process. Our clients can decide that although there is budget remaining, the delivery team has met their objectives and can call the project complete. On the flip side, although the total budget may be expended on this project, and all backlog items may not have been developed, our clients are guaranteed to have live, working functionality that is of the highest value to them due to the constant inspection and adaptation of the project backlog.