Agile Collaboration Schemas

Traditionally, Indian IT Services Industry has a tradition of negotiating contracts and these contracts define the nature of association between the organization outsourcing work and the organization taking on work.  However, traditional mechanism of contracts is undergoing a change as at one end the IT Industry has entered the third wave of services characterized by core technical skills, strong project management skills, creativity and innovation and on the other hand competition is increasing. The sellers market is slowly being replaced with buyers market. In addition, whether the organizations are doing “Agile” or not, Agile is also influencing how contracts are structured. Agile contracts are perhaps the most important facet in a service organization looking to go Agile. If the organization can’t have a contractual structure in place, more than likely Agile implementation would fail. However, it takes a bit of learning and unlearning to understand how to write contracts. One of the first things to do could be to call it by a different name. I like to call them “collaboration schemas”. Here are broad differences between contracts and collaboration schemas:

• Like Agile, collaboration schemas define the broad contours and framework of engagement
• Like Agile, each collaboration schema instance is unique and different
• Like Agile, collaboration schemas are to come up using collaboration, feedback and trust
• Like Agile, collaboration schemas emphasize transparency and minimize capitalizing at others expense
• The outcomes of the collaboration schema is Keiretsu – closely knit organizational engagement

A major factor to consider moving forward in Agile is trust. Trust is one of those values which you can only earn through your actions. Trust is formed right from the first interaction and continues to be either strengthened, holds on or declines with each further interaction.  These principles help a trust worthy image for the company:

• Open negotiation of profit margins
• Transparency on actual costs for development
• Ability to walk the extra mile and think what’s the best for the customer

Another of the salient features of contracts is the “fixed price”. Everyone dreads “fixed price” in service industry. The customer knows that she would be looking at huge change control budget even after a “fixed price”. The vendor knows that they would more than likely a loosing proposition and yet they would take it up. And on top of this, another common myth< is that you can’t do “fixed price with “Agile“. That’s not entirely true. There are various fixed price options available [and more can be constructed]. Some of these options include target cost collaboration schemas, 1/3^rd – 2/3^rd collaboration schemas, evolutionary collaboration schemas, fixed price/ fixed date collaboration schemas, maximum cost/ last date collaboration schemas, declining rate collaboration schemas and intellectual property collaboration schemas. Some other options within the framework include less scope collaboration schemas, two stage collaboration schemas, initial requirement freeze phase and fixed quota hours.  

Agile is finding wide spread acceptance and in future there would be more examples and schemas to provide reference for teams looking to try Agile within service environment. However, the above should be a good guidance and relatively risk free bases to start from for most teams. The idea is to understand that the above are just a starting point and the real beauty of Agile should be brought to collaboration schemas as well – visibility, inspection and adaptation.

Scrum-India Yahoo Group

I moderate the Scrum-India Yahoo Group founded by Pete Deemer. If you would like to join the group, please go the group URL http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Scrum-India/ To sign up for the Scrum-India group without having to go through the full Yahoo! registration process, just click the button below that says “join this group”, and then on the web page that loads, look for a link at the bottom that says “join the mailing list instead”– click that and you would be subscribed.

The group will be a place to Meet other people using Scrum, at product companies and services companies, big and small. Primarily, the group would answer questions you would be hesitant to ask in bigger groups. Some of the topics that would be discussed in the group include:

• Scrum and fixed-bid contracts,
• Scrum and CMMi,
• Reporting business metrics in Scrum,
• Techniques for Agile planning and estimation,
• Introduction to Scrum,
• Product Backlog,
• Product Owner,
• IT Services and Scrum,
• Advice on organizational change.

Biweekly posting of Scrum events throughout India would be posted as well.

Review : Agile Conference at NCR

I started for the conference at NCR from Chandigarh at about 10 AM on 7th. I had hired a taxi and ASCI, was kind enough to sponsor the to and fro fare. We reached Delhi at around 4 PM and it took us one hour to reach Green Park and another 04 hours to reach Ansals Institute - the conference venue. The problem was as usual traffic. The new toll bridge does not seem to have worked. I sometimes wonder how life would have been without it, if its so difficult with it. Needless to say, Gurgaon at night is quite a sight but no greenery makes it a very dry city. I reached the campus and immediately slept.

Waking up early on 8th, I rearranged my presentation and slides and got ready and went to the venue. By the time, Pete was already speaking. I have listened to Pete many time and as usual he was in his elements. After Pete and some tea, I saw Naresh, president of ASCI, speaking for the first time. He is a good speaker. After that I attended Shreekanth from Sabre’s talk on Distributed Development. It was a decent talk as well. After that I attended two talks back to back : Jagdish Shri’s talk on CMMi and Agile as well as Deepak from Intelligrape’s talk on Metrics for Agile Projects. Both were brilliant. Finally, it was my turn and I was able to complete only half of the content I prepared [mental note: keep presentation short]. After my presentation, the open space was held where I went for “Is India suited for Agile”. Interesting comments were made for and against the motion. Not sure, if we concluded anything.

Overall, the conference was a good start, although not sure why it was on 5th floor when a ground floor venue would have allowed use of parks and open spaces. However, a great start.