2. Digital Strategy Management ¦ 15 September 2016
Agenda
• what is Agile?
• legal issues
• flexible contracts
• commercial challenges
• barriers to Agile
• benefits of Agile
7. Digital Strategy Management ¦ 15 September 2016
Legal certainties
• lawyers like certainty: outcome, cost, time, etc
• features specified “up front”
• “Cone of Uncertainty”
• silo mentality
• “Lose-Lose” contracts
8. Digital Strategy Management ¦ 15 September 2016
Flexible contracts
• collaborative
• adaptive
• recognises change
• outcomes orientated
• requires cultural change
9. Digital Strategy Management ¦ 15 September 2016
Commercial Challenges
• Preserving balance between flexibility and certainty
• Agreement on scope
• Collaboration
o employee empowerment
o IP ownership
• Risk and liability
• Consequences of interim acceptance
• Governance and control measures
o performance monitoring – velocity, cadence, etc
o quality control
• Commercial models – controlling the cost
10. Digital Strategy Management ¦ 15 September 2016
Barriers to Agile
• Requirement for legal certainty
• Myths
o lack of financial control
o uncertainty of outcome
• Lack of commercial models
o Norwegian PS-2000 contract
o Dutch K03 contract
o GDS DOS
o DSDM Agile Framework Template
• Need for cultural change
12. Digital Strategy Management ¦ 15 September 2016
Questions?
Stewart James
Partner
s.james@ashfords.co.uk
+44 (0)7813 019002
Editor's Notes
Looking at pricing issues – first problem is the ability to give detailed estimates
Accuracy long-term estimates
Compounding effect of events
Speaking as a lawyer – the biggest barrier to the use of Agile seems to be the lawyers
Lawyers are trained to look for the things in a project that can go wrong and to allocate risk accordingly
lawyers are conservative – and advise conservatively
Want to create outcome certain
Myths
Agile lacks the certainties lawyers seek to create
Biggest myths
Lack of financial control - Agile only suitable for small projects or internal projects
Lack of specification – leads to uncertainty of outcome
Lack of commercial models means no tried & tested examples to work from
Also need for cultural change => resistance
First reaction to change is resist it
Collaboration => lack clarity over who bears risk if something goes wrong
However – other areas of law manage eg H&S allocates responsibility for risk to roles
Historically, contracts based on engineering & construction templates
Because Lawyers are conservative
prefer to use precedent where available
Creates predictability
Avoids litigation
These follow sequential process or “waterfall”