I speak at conferences around the country each year, most often on the topic of real-world, full-blown application of Agile Software Development using Scrum. I always appreciate when folks come to me after the end of a conference talk to ask questions about the topic of adopting or applying Agile in various scenarios. I usually end up having at least a couple new challenges to my assumptions, which helps me further inspect and adapt my approach to coaching and mentoring.
I will almost always have at least one person who presents what they think is the tough question, the one area where Agile and Scrum simply cannot work. The question, in the form an assertion, usually goes something like this:
“This stuff is all well and good when you are working inside a company and your clients are the people that work with you in the same company, but our clients are external customers, and we have fixed-bid projects, which is why we cannot use anything like this.”
The embedded question in statements like the one above is, “Can Agile, and Scrum in particular, be used when you do professional services work for external clients, even with fixed-bid projects?”
Yes, you can.
The person who presents me with a statement like that is usually dumbfounded when I respond that at least a third of my clients are consulting practices and professional services firms that do exactly what was just described. Not only can you do it, there are many scenarios where you should do it. Using an Agile, iterative approach to professional services engagements can be a formidable sales tool and competitive advantage.
In the coming days I will be sharing some insight on the nuances of adopting Agility with external customers based on my years of experience working with clients who have done that very thing.
DSDM is based on the concept of fixed date and cost, leaving scope – in the form of prioritised requirements – as the variable. A robust alternative to Scrum
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