My “Fixed Price Agile Projects” talk has been getting some traction. Originally broadcast by the PMI Agile Community of Practice, it’s recently been picked up by PMI as part of their On-Demand Webinar series. It’s a free download for PMI members, but in case you’re not a member, I’ve posted the slides below. Meanwhile, I’ll be presenting the talk in person at the PMI Washington DC Symposium Next Week. So if you’re free, stop by and check it out.
Here’s the abstract:
Agile experts tell us fixed price projects are immoral and declare that agility can only be delivered on a slippery schedule and budget. But what about the real world? What about fixed deadlines and fixed budgets? What about projects that are selected based on schedule and cost? How do you agile that? In this session, you will learn key principles for achieving agility in a fixed-price environment. Come discover how to achieve what agile experts tell you is impossible.
- Original Webinar Broadcast Sept 15, 2011 (PMI Members Only) – This version includes live video, but the first 10 minutes are missing.
- Official PMI Webinar (PMI Members Only) – This is a much cleaner re-record, but has only audio and slides.
- Downloadable Slides (Everyone)
Having gained alot from this webinar as well as the contracts information, I thought I would approach you with a question.
I have been asked to create a WBS to help price an agile project. I am not comfortable using a waterfall technique in the proposal because I don’t think the client will feel we are masters of the agile methodology. I am new to this so maybe it’s okay to combine the techniques.
However, I would like to see what tools other CSMs use to price a project. Do you have any suggestions or references?
Rhonda, you’re asking a couple great questions. First, Agile methods prefer a WBS that is broken down from a feature perspective, not from a labor perspective. PMI Agile pioneers Sliger and Viscardi call this a “feature breakdown structure”. Second, to price a fixed-price agile project, ask the delivery team this question: using any estimation method you prefer, how many timeboxed iterations will it take you to complete the project? You can see here how this question drives the budget.
HOWEVER, if your project requires the work of several delivery teams, you will run into some problems, which I will be exploring on my blog over the next several posts.
Stay tuned and thanks for the comment.