This document discusses how ShopLocal, a digital marketing company, adapted their fixed price contracts to better align with their agile development practices. Some key points: - ShopLocal had been practicing Scrum since 2007 but contracts were not aligned, leading to missed deadlines and misunderstandings. - They adapted by including user stories, acceptance criteria, and clear definitions of done in contracts. They also implemented user story workshops, iterative UAT cycles and adaptive release planning. - This resulted in empowered teams, fewer bugs found during UAT, on-time delivery, and happier clients and internal teams.

1. Fixed Price Contracts in Agile Rally Success Tour – Chicago, IL October 15, 2009 Brendan Flynn

2. We’re ShopLocal ShopLocal uses innovative digital marketing techniques to connect shoppers with local retailers. Key Points: Pioneered the Use of Online Circulars Developed first of its kind technology platform for digitizing and versioning, local DMA print circular data 375+ Million Visits with 5+ Billion Page Views Annually to SmartCircular sites Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Chicago, IL Owned by Gannett Company, and partnered with PointRoll

3. We’re ShopLocal

4. Agile @ShopLocal Practicing Scrum since 2007 Multiple product lines Multiple teams responsible for: Data Platform / API Custom client projects Product support / maintenance Code releases every week Using Rally since Feb. 2008

5. We were practicing Agile… but not with clients Our contracts were not aligned with how we developed software Clients/Sales expect a fixed time, cost, scope contract Features were wide open to interpretation No acceptance criteria defined in contracts Schedules were not based on empirical data The dreaded change request

6. Impacts Externally Missed delivery dates Misinterpreted requirements Clients had no visibility of how much work was left within a given release Internally Sales/account teams were working outside of delivery teams Increased cycle time No understanding of how project fell into overall programs / capacity

7. Adapting Fixed Contracts to Work with Agile Optimize the whole, not just your development practices Value Stream Analysis – concept to cash User Stories & Acceptance Criteria in plain language, not technical jargon Clear definitions of DONE Limits defining what the feature does not include User Story workshops with clients/teams Client UAT sessions at end of each iteration Adaptive Release Plans Exchange Requests not Change Requests

8. Results to Date Internally Empowered team, ability to influence release plan Iterative UAT cycles, mitigate gotchas Program level visibility to team and management Happy Sales and Product Management Externally Value of adaptive release planning Fully functioning features every 2 weeks Projects consistently delivered on time Client confidence/trust

9. Continue the conversation… http://shoplocalblog.com @shoplocal on Twitter Brendan Flynn, Sr. Director of Project Management bflynn@shoplocal.com @hbflynn on Twitter Blog: http://agilemusings.com