[eterm]

Absolutely this, clients need to know their costs upfront.

Meanwhile, I've been on the other side, working with a shop that insisted they were agile, and so refused to give an upfront cost.

That project ended up delivering a substandard project where key parts did not work well. Their answer was to tell us they would of course be happy to be paid for another 2 week sprint to fix those bugs...

As a customer it wasn't very satisfying.

[lliamander]

I'm curious, did your contractors host regular demos, sprint retrospectives, etc.? If so, was it clear early on that the results were going to be substandard, or was it a surprise fairly late into the process?

I'm not going to debate about whether they were doing "true Agile", but it seems like even without settling upfront costs it would still be possible to control risks by tracking value added vs. cost on a sprint-to-sprint basis. Hopefully it should be evident early on if the project isn't worth it[1].

Of course, this requires that the contractors be able to deliver value incrementally, which might not be possible in all projects. In which case, upfront cost estimates (and more thorough planning) will probably be necessary.

[1]In fact, this is exactly why Zed Shaw says he uses Scrum on risky projects(http://zedshaw.com/archive/the-c2i2-hypothesis/)

[Zigurd]

The problem isn't with the requirement for fixed-time, fixed-bid contracts. The problem is that agile methods and tools, and all the advantages they carry, are incompatible with those requirements: You can't start fast with minimal specs. You can't apply what's been learned along the way unless, miraculously, it costs less and takes less time. You can't make changes to suit changing business goals without a major negotiation on change orders. You can't access most of the benefits of agile inside that box.

You CAN, however, find contract developers who have mastered the art of faking agile methods and being buzzword compliant while delivering no feedback that prevents you from having bad ideas implemented in bad ways.

You will also find contractors that will lead you down the garden path. You could call them "half agile." They won't warn you that you are asking for something dumb, or unworkable. They will treat your mistakes as revenue enhancement opportunities and lay on the agile talk pretty thick.

This is why the "no true agile Scotsman" argument is so easy to make: That's not agile. You have the wrong people. You fail at agile. That's an easy case to prove but it isn't very helpful.

Real agile is hard to do and doing it with compromised ingredients, like using low-bid contractors that want to minimize their effort and/or enhance their revenue, that you have stuffed into a fixed-bid box, is agile poison.

[13hours]

I don't think working fixed price quote would have given you a different outcome though? The team produced bad quality product, fixed cost or agile won't change that.

Selecting the team to build the product on price is often a bad idea, and that's all fixed cost gives you above agile (the ability to select on price).

[eterm]

A fixed cost makes it easier to turn and around not pay (in whole or part) if the product is really not up to the standard specified. It's harder to do that if the cost is not fixed but overrunning and the response is "well we just need more time".

Also fwiw, the team wasn't selected on price.

[marcus_holmes]

In my experience it's easier and less risky doing it the agile way. You give them a 2-week sprint target. If they fail to hit that, then:

a. You don't pay them. b. They're probably going to miss every other target.

If you paid the agile shop for everything they did no matter how crap, and withheld payment from the waterfall shop because quality control, then that's got nothing to do with agile vs waterfall, it's got to do with your QC.

[jsprogrammer]

Not pay? Heh. For work performed? OK...

That is why my contracts require payment up front.

[SapphireSun]

Sounds like they should have negotiated for a base rate with bonus pay out on meeting QC targets. For heavens sake people, align your incentives!

[codeisawesome]

Everyone, on both sides of this river, they need to grow up.

[st3v3r]

To be fair, they're talking about subpar, unacceptable work.

[Can_Not]

Or it could be solid, perfect work that meets the best possible interpretation of the contract, but the client failed to communicate what they actually wanted and perceive it as subpar and unacceptable.

[ChemicalWarfare]

The question is how this shop ended up getting the gig in the first place ;)