Distributed agile teams and alternative contractual forms: what works best?
This session is designed for agile practioners who are seeking to improve practices in large agile programs. It is targeted for experienced and inexperienced sponsors, product owners, scrum masters, project managers and people involved in business development and contract negociation.
I will share my experience in proposing, negotiating, managing and living with agile contracts used in large, distributed, multi-cultural agile teams. The session will focus on practical experience and will be illustrated with examples and an analysis of agile contracts types and how they impact quality, productivity, team motivation and success.
I will cover:
- selecting and refining the methodology: getting vendor and client in sync
- the types and structures of typical agile contracts
- can fixed bid contracts be compatible with agile methods?
- estimating functional and non-functional scope - levels of planning
- alternative units for measuring software production
- organising and timing requirements, design and estimation workshops
- team organisation, roles and ramp up
- client versus vendor responsabilities
- planning releases and iterations
- acceptance testing
- warranties
- reversability
I will provide an in-depth analysis and comparison of several agile programs and their associated contracts, and the impact of these contracts on agile process and teams. Consideration and the impact of three primary contractual forms will be discussed: fixed bid/fixed scope, time and materials, and payment for production.
I plan to present during the first 80 minutes with 10 minutes for discussion, and will encourage questions and interactivity during the presentation. The planned timings are:
- building and supporting contracts to engage large distributed agile teams (20 min)
- in-depth case studies (30 min)
- fixed bid, T&M and pay-for production contract alternatives (30 min)
- discussion (10 min)