TOPIC: Agile vs Traditional approach in contracts

Hi,

Consider a scenario where we (client) engage an engineering contractor to do the engineering works for us and we have the option to go for the traditional life cycle or agile life cycle.

Considering each cycle what effect it may have on the contract value. As per my understanding since Agile needs a lot of customer collaborations, so a hefty amount of client's project team will be involved with the contractor's project team. So in such a case selecting an agile life cycle should have lower contract value as a good amount of client's effort is being put in the engineering in comparison to if traditional where client would have just been doing the approvals.

Your comments please.

Hi, I'll give my thoughts on this although my experience is focused on the traditional / waterfall style of projects.

I agree that agile teams would involve more collaboration with the customer, however, I don't think you can say the contract value would be lower necessarily. The idea of open collaboration with the customer would help the team to stay focused on their needs and get their buy-in regularly. However, more meetings with the client would result in more hours being spent by the contractor. The work does not change, but how often you're communicating / interacting with the client does.

I'd be interested to hear others' opinions.

Hi,

Definitely in this case all the iteration would add an extra cost, since this requires more man hours for every iteration. And add a risk of scope variations in every iteration since these iterations could show new opportunities. This could result in a be a better final work but definitely not a cheapest.