The real challenge in IT projects isn’t contractual: it’s alignment

In IT services, time-and-materials and fixed-price models have long been presented as almost opposite approaches: one would be synonymous with flexibility, the other with control. Reality is more nuanced. These models are simply contractual frameworks. They shape the collaboration, but they do not determine the quality of governance, the effectiveness of the team, nor the success of the product.

What actually makes a project succeed is not the contract: it’s alignment.

When the client and the provider share a clear vision of the value to be delivered, when each takes part of the responsibility for the outcome, and when communication remains fluid throughout the life of the project, the contractual model becomes almost secondary.

But some models — by their very structure — make this alignment easier than others.

Time-and-materials: effective for ensuring presence, less suited to steering value

Time-and-materials is based on a simple logic: a team is engaged to provide time and skills.

This model works well when the scope is stable and the client wants to maintain direct control over the daily organization of the work.

But this approach aligns more with an activity-based logic than a value-based one. The cost of a feature depends on time spent rather than expected impact, making trade-offs more difficult. The client must closely monitor progress, coordinate contributors, and take on a significant share of project management.

This is not a problem in itself, but it means time-and-materials is more suited to contexts where operational continuity is more important than the ability to prioritize and maximize value.

Classic fixed-price: a commitment to results… within a sometimes overly rigid framework

Conversely, the classic fixed-price model is built on a clear promise: delivering a predefined result.

The client is no longer buying time, but a deliverable. Effort is masked behind an overall commitment; responsibility for the result shifts to the provider.

This model is effective when the need is well understood and the team is mature: it fosters strong collective momentum and goal-oriented governance.

However, it often suffers from its own rigidity. The contractual scope freezes the project even as needs evolve. The slightest change becomes an amendment, and the smallest uncertainty turns into tension. Fixed-price projects don’t fail because they are fixed-price: they fail because they are governed by the contract rather than by value.

Its real advantage — the ability to adjust expertise along the way — is too often stifled by the administrative burden that accompanies these adjustments.

Agile fixed-price: a framework that brings value back to the center and streamlines collaboration

To overcome these limits, we have developed at exFabrica a more flexible approach: an agile fixed-price model built around a points-based system.

The principle is simple: the client sets a budget and a level of ambition. Everything is evaluated in points — a unit that reflects not only complexity, but also expected value, uncertainty, and the expertise required for each feature.

From there, something changes fundamentally: project governance becomes truly value-centric.

At each sprint, the client arbitrates, adjusts, prioritizes. They can decide to invest more points in a strategic feature, or on the contrary reduce the scope of a User Story to deliver an MVP faster. This model also allows for temporarily reinforcing the team with additional expertise without entering lengthy contractual negotiations: effort is simply re-evaluated in points.

This framework creates new transparency. Where time-and-materials makes the cost of a feature almost unreadable, a points-based fixed-price model allows the client to understand immediately what they are buying and why. Return on investment is no longer theoretical: it becomes tangible, sprint after sprint.

It’s no longer a project mode, but a product mode.

The key is not the model: it’s alignment

Ultimately, the success of a project does not depend on time-and-materials, fixed-price, or any contractual mechanism.

It depends on the collective ability to agree on the value to be delivered, to share responsibility for it, and to maintain continuous dialogue around that value.

In this context, time-and-materials and classic fixed-price remain relevant in certain cases, but they do not always offer the ideal conditions to foster alignment.

Agile fixed-price, on the other hand, creates an environment where:

• value is explicit,
• choices are informed,
• effort is controlled,
• the team is empowered,
• and the framework evolves with the project.

This is the model that allows us, at exFabrica, to consistently achieve strong results and a high level of satisfaction.

Not because “fixed-price is better than time-and-materials,” but because it creates a space where we can succeed together, staying aligned from start to finish.