Contracting in agile software projects: State of art and how to understand it

Abstract

The iterative nature of Agile methods paves the way for new and more dynamic contract arrangements in software development projects. However, while new types and adaptations of existing contract types have emerged in practice, a shared view on these arrangements is missing in literature. In this paper we review common contract types discussed in Agile and traditional project management. Based on existing literature and empirical data collected during a workshop and semi-structured interviews we present a preliminary framework to help understand and choose contracting practices in context. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.