Definitely an article that should be read by every lawyer seeking to write collaborative, Agile-supportive contracts. I’ll be talking about the work of Thorup, Jensen and the rest of the crew at Best Brains for a long time.
Here are my top 5 takeaways from their paper,– none of which absolve you from the responsibility of reading it yourself:
- Agile software teams NEED Agile contracts. Not writing the agreement in specific support of the Agile team is a huge disservice to your client or team. It should be a fundamental premise.
- Language matters.Put support for Agile in the WHEREAS clauses, so there is no doubt about how the team will execute upon its obligations and the consent to that process by each partner.
- Agile contracts are value-based so these must be fully communicated to counsel or negotiators. It’s not enough to be Agile, a team negotiator needs to strategize based on Agile values. This goes well beyond Musashi’s, Book of 5 Rings.
- Risk-shifting analysis is even more important. The good news is that Agile contracts should, by definition, create greater certainty around downsides with respect to ownership, warranties and limitations of liability provisions.
- Software developers will profit from Agile agreements. Happy, satisfied clients come back and refer you for more work. Agile supports quality, giving the customer what she wants and economies of scale through code reusability.
I’d be very interested to hear how the session went, because Best Brains are definitely on to something here!
