Agile Contracts – Doomed from the Start

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“Customer collaboration over contract negotiation” is one of the 4 values of the Agile manifesto. However, this remains a challenging value to adopt in practice especially when dealing with a client/vendor relationship. Many organizations and contracting officers still rely on traditional contracting arrangements that directly conflict with the 4th value of “responding to change over following a plan”. Others adopt more creative Agile contracts that have their own pitfalls that may result in counterproductive behavior that negatively impacts collaboration. In this interactive session we will look at such contracts. We will compare and contrast different types of contracts and learn how some enhanced customer collaboration while others destroyed the client/vendor relationship. We will go over specific contract clauses and discuss the intent behind the clauses and compare expected team behavior vs. observed team behavior. We will look at clauses from 2 different perspectives, understand why they are included and highlight potential pitfalls that can doom a project from the start. We will then compare it to alternate approaches that truly resulted in enhanced collaboration. Come to this session to learn about Agile contracts. Learn how to identify contract clauses that will result in anti-Agile and non-collaborative behavior. Learn what aspects encourage collaboration and how to structure contracts that results in a win-win for both client and vendor.