Category: big design up front

Fixed price part 1, what's so bad?

July 21, 2009 by Mendelt Siebenga

In his excellent article 10 Contracts for your next Agile Software Project, Peter Stevens described 10 different contracts that are often used in software development projects. At the end of his article he singles out one contract-type:

"Fixed price projects and agile development are considered not to mix. I know from experience that this is not strictly true. I am also convinced that other forms are better."

I completely agree with him on this but since fixed price contracts are so common in software development it seems like a good idea to look at them a bit more carefully. In this article I want to look the problems with fixed price and why traditional software engineering methodologies are unable to solve these problems. In my next article I want to continue on a more positive note and show how agile practices will help you make the most of fixed price.