have a look at my handbook at the website (www.projectmanagment-training.net). There are some rules and statements about financial aspects and contracts in regards to agile projectmanagment. The main issue is that with waterfall, the goal is set (in a contract). In an agile approach not the ultimate goal is set, but the time to be spend on the project. This off course is scary for the buying party, but if you get them to understand that the waterfall agreement is very insecure because it is imposible to set the ultimate goal/achievement at the very early start of a project, they tend to trust the building party (sometimes). Trust and cooperation are the keywords here, understanding that (software) projects are uncertain, and that both the client and the creating party need to share (the risks of) this uncertainty.

One thing from Agile methodologies which I have not figured it out is the approach to contract and specially financial matters. If you want to implement a project in agile approach that’s great but how one estimate the project cost at the beginning ?
can anyone help ?

I don’t think the author said that Agile is better than waterfall, he just said that requirements in software projects are hard to gather in the beginning.

I have to state the following facts:

- Waterfall is a time tested methodology that was used in software projects since the inception of programming (it worked then, and it’s still working now).
- Agile is not an independent methodology, it’s just waterfall with more feedback.
- On an unrelated note: Agilists are becoming more and more a cult (which is scary).

Sorry for the harsh answer, but I’ve read so much stuff praising Agile as if it’s the best thing since sliced bread, while it’s really nothing more than Waterfall with a lot of feedback (which is not always a great thing).

Anyone care to explain?