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Can Agile Fly on Fixed Wings? Taming the Fixed-Price Project Beast
As an Agile Coach, I hear the question often: “Can Scrum work with fixed-price projects?” The short answer is yes, but it’s not a fairy-tale romance. It’s not an unknown fact that fixed-price contracts disincentivize change, hindering agility. Clients hesitate to ask for changes due to potential cost increases, while developers fear scope creep and budget overruns.
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Here’s the rub: fixed-price projects love predictability, while agile thrives on flexibility. It may seem like the Twains can never meet, yet practitioners do have some tricks under their sleeves to make this unlikely pairing work:
Acknowledge the elephant in the room
A fixed price Agile project construct goes against the core Agile value of “customer collaboration over contract negotiation.” We must educate the customers about this if they are keen to run the project in Agile mode. Fixed prices thrive on the incorrect notion that time, budget, and scope can be fixed and planned upfront (remember the iron triangle of software development?). However, fixing time, budget, and scope can only guarantee one certainty, viz., the low quality of deliverables. Strive to promote contracts that are agile-friendly, welcome uncertainty…
