Good Negotiators Make the Pie Bigger

A friend of mine runs a small (but very cool) web development company. He went a long to a meeting with a film company who wanted him to build a website but for a "fixed price" of ten thousand pounds. My friend tried to move them on the price because he knew that he couldn't do the site for that amount of money. But the clients were firm, that was all they could spend. Luckily my friend had brought with him his new office manager who'd had some experience of negotiations. She suggested that maybe they could develop some of the software for a fixed fee and then license some of the other software for a licence fee of three thousand pounds a year over three years. The clients agreed instantly - software licensing was a different budget and they could easily afford three thousand a year.

For further information, contact Mark@agilelab.co.uk (07736 807 604) or Matt@agilelab.co.uk (07713 634 830)

For further information, contact Mark@agilelab.co.uk (07736 807 604) or Matt@agilelab.co.uk (07713 634 830)

A Matter of Principle

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I read this and thought it was a very appropriate response to the kind of objections we often get to Agile methods.

Many people's first response to hearing about how Agile is done takes the form of a quibble with a specific method. But Agile isn't really about the details of any specific method - or indeed any specific methodology XP, Scrum, DSDM. It's more about the principles: iterative development rather than big-design up front; short iterations; working code; writing tests first and tracking velocity. That's it. All the methods come from these principles.