DirtyInformation

An Agile Contract

31 Mar 2014

In starting my own business people always ask how I write contracts that don’t have a fixed price or a well defined scope. I’d love to talk about my wizardry of speaking or how amazing I am with my words, but you’ve read my blog. I only tell the truth as I know it and am confident in what I say. So there is no big secret to leaving out scope and getting contracts that aren’t based on a fixed bid. It isn’t your place to set their budget, and fixed bid contracts rarely leave either side happy. So I thought I would share this contract with you, or at least a portion of it. This is actually an amendment to a contract that changed from a feasibility study into a full blown project.

The purpose of this amendment is to create a working agreement that is beneficial to both sides and allows the delivery of the best product to fit the needs of THE COMPANY.

Working Agreement The CONSULTANT will provide software development services and expertise to THE COMPANY under the direction of X with a backup decision maker of Y. The CONSULTANT will work hand in hand with X in order to provide the most value to the product.

After each unit of work the CONSULTANT will demo and deliver all software that has been completed to that point. After the demo there will be a small planning meeting in which all interested parties are able to attend. The purpose of the planning meeting is to further refine the requirements and set the next priorities. At each demo THE COMPANY and the CONSULTANT will have the option to continue working together in order to further development or to take delivery of the product as is. At each milestone THE COMPANY is free to use the software as long as they are engaged with the contractor and all payments have been made on time. Upon final payment THE COMPANY will be given all source code produced by the CONSULTANT.

If you have any comments on the wording please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email. I am not a lawyer and am not giving legal advice. I am merely trying to say that if you don’t try to give them a non-fixed bid contract then of course it is hard to do. Most people understand when you explain to them the life cycle of software and our changing world. The most important part is to be honest with yourself and your customer.

The Past

• Testing Named Agents 03 Feb 2017
• Two Duplication Refactorings in Elixir 18 Jan 2017
• B is for BigDecimal 24 Sep 2014
• A is for Abbrev 02 Sep 2014
• Missed Chances 15 Aug 2014
• Style Guides are Failures 15 Jun 2014
• What is BDD anyway? 15 Apr 2014
• An Agile Contract 31 Mar 2014
• What Do I Want 23 Mar 2014
• Just the Tip 16 Mar 2014
• Important Partnerships 11 Mar 2014
• Lost in Translation 03 Mar 2014
• Story Splitting Revisited 23 Feb 2014
• Let your yes be yes and your no be no 16 Feb 2014
• Lethal Injection 09 Feb 2014
• Smaller is Better 02 Feb 2014
• A Second Time 26 Jan 2014
• Introspective 20 Jan 2014
• Self Reflection for the Win 06 Dec 2013
• Why? Why? Why? 30 Sep 2013
• A New Gig 18 Sep 2013
• Exceptional Comments 15 Jun 2013
• Role Objects in Acceptance Tests 30 Apr 2013
• Open Closed Ruby Woes 28 Apr 2013
• Write Something 12 Apr 2013
• A Great Cast of Characters 06 Mar 2012
• When is the Release Party? 19 Aug 2011
• Single Responsibilty, How Did I Forget You 12 Apr 2011
• Change Classes not Styles 05 Nov 2010
• My MongoDB Cookbook Recipe 20 Jul 2010
• Agile Says What? 05 Nov 2009
• Inject & Me - BFFs 07 Sep 2008