A colleague and I have been set the challenge of writing a contract for an IT development factory which will adopt the Scrum Agile methodology. Agile has many benefits in terms of delivery of an end product, that meets the customers quality and functionality requirements but it is far from straight forward to contract for.

In the proposed factory model, there will be 4 week sprints with a release into live each month. There is enough demand that we need 4 to 6 scrums all working in parallel delivering in to the same release. Waterfall projects have a defined scope and often duration which make it pretty straight forward to contract for. Agile, especially in the proposed factory model approach this is not the case.

The decision of what to contract against becomes even more complicated when adopting Agile compared to waterfall. No longer can the Contract Manager be confident he knows what he has purchased, that he has incentivised the supplier to over perform and he has implemented mechanisms to penalise the supplier for poor performance or low productivity. Contracting for FTE’s, developer days or ideal developer days are easy to do but offer little assistance in guaranteeing output delivered.

One could look at using story points to contract against to ensure a certain level of output but would you get a school boy to set and then mark his own homework? No? Neither would I but that is pretty much how Story Points are used in Agile. This means trust becomes more important than ever which is difficult enough for those on the ground involved in the day to day working with the supplier. For those in Supply Chain or Contract Management roles tasked with protecting their employer, this is not a path they would be happy to tread. It also requires a long transition period to baseline the right level of velocity to contract against increasing the level of risk for 3 to 6 months. 

So in short, there are no obvious answers to the challenges I face and for once, even Google doesnt have the answer. Do you?

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Its been widely reported that due to an internal uprising of unhappy employees the Vodafone UK board have reversed their decision not to give staff a bonus this year. What a load of bollocks!!. Such a statement implies that the board of one of the biggest companies in the UK is so weak that it can be forced to change its mind on something by its staff.

The reports also seriously patronise staff. Although none of us were happy with the fact we werent getting bonuses we understood why. The company hadnt performed. There has been no hint of fury or uprising so I would like the sensationalist journalists to put a little bit of work into their next pieces on Vodafone rather than writing lazy articles.

In truth, the board realised all the hard work that UK employees put in which unfortunately wasnt mirrored by the financial results. Acknowledging the amount of change required and that much has been done to turn this oil tanker round the board made the decision to reward staff. I can tell you that it came out of the blue and went down very well indeed. Shame the papers got hold of the internal communications but still I for one believe in the board we have.

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Working for one of the biggest FTSE 100 companies can be intresting, rewarding but also seriously frustrating. Im the sort that likes to know whats happening but recently it seems that staff are always that last to know about things no matter how important or trivial.

Earlier this year my employer laid off a sizeable nnumber of staff and how did we all find out? A quick search through google gave us information regarding numbers to be laid off. Even on the day itself, our CEO sent a company wide email which didnt give as much detail as the BBC were reporting. Its shocking to think that even with important messages staff play second fiddle to external sources.

The new CEO promised to shake up how staff are communicated to by becoming more open, encouraging / demanding his management team are more open and approachable and talking to us like adults not children. A couple of months on and it seems the CEO is true to his word with a number of refreshing emails being sent company wide and same day responses to staff questions. Hopefully this will continue and everyone will be pulling in the same direction.

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