Agile Contracts: what are they?
(Originally posted on May 19th, 2009)
It’s a question that often gets asked and puzzles even the top managers of many consulting companies.
If you are going “Agile”, how to go about negotiating contracts? Aren’t “fixed bids” fundamentally incompatible with Agile? If so, then how can you handle potential clients who want a number to be quoted?
It turns out there are a number of ways to go about Agile contracts, described in more detail at
http://agilesoftwaredevelopment.com/blog/peterstev/10-agile-contracts
1. The “Sprint Contract”
2. Fixed Price / Fixed Scope
3. Time and Materials
4. Time and Materials with Fixed Scope and a Cost Ceiling
5. Time and Materials with Variable Scope and Cost Ceiling
6. Phased Development
7. Bonus / Penalty Clauses
8. Fixed Profit
9. “Money for Nothing, Changes for Free”
10. Joint Ventures
Here’s another very useful collection of links on the subject, put together by Joe Little:
