Books

Succeeding with OKRs in AgileThe Art of Agile Product OwnershipContinuous DigitalProject MyopiaA Little Book about Requirements and User StoriesXanpanBusiness Patterns for Software DevelopersChanging Software DevelopmentContributions and chapters

Succeeding with OKRs in Agile

Book cover: Succeeding with OKRs in Agile

Amazon #1 Best seller in “Agile Programming” and “IT Project Management”

OKRs are about goals bigger than the next story, or even epic. OKRs prioritise purpose and strategy over backlogs. Objectives are big goals; key results are smaller goals that build towards the objective.

Agile works well with OKRs because both are outcome oriented and results focused. Used right OKRs give purpose, power and authority to teams. Used poorly OKRs can re-introduce command-and-control and hinder agile working.

Allan Kelly has written this short guide to OKRs: writing, organizing to deliver and the pitfalls of using. He doesn’t try to sell OKRs, rather Allan draws on his practical experience with teams working agile and adopting OKRs, day-by-day, quarter-by-quarter.

Initially sceptical, Allan found OKRs became an effective way to focus teams, expose problems, communicate with senior managers and a powerful means of asking bigger questions about product strategy and value. Read more about Succeeding with OKRs in Agile.


Books to be Written

Thinking of writing a book? Debating between self-publishing and finding a publisher? Wondering how to market your book?

Books to be Written describes expereinces from writing, publishing and marketing eight books. Learn more about Books to be Written and how you can download a free samle.

Books to be Written

The Art of Product Ownership

The Art of Agile Product Ownership

Every product owner faces a complex and unique set of challenges within their team. This provides each individual the opportunity to fill the role with different ambitions, skills, and insights. Your product ownership journey can take a variety of paths, and The Art of Agile Product Ownership is here to be your guide.

Read a review on Scrum Expert. (Published by Apress, 2019.)


I sometimes think of Continuous Digital and Project Myopia as “the twins” – although they are quite different, you could read Project Myopia in an afternoon, Continuous might take you a little longer. At one time the two were one book and they collectively form an answe to the “the project problem.” Project Myopia is a critique of the project model while Continuous Digital offers and alternative for our digital world.


Continuous Digital

Taking Agile to the next level – An agile alternative to projects

In the digital world, the business is technology, and technology is the business. Every business is a digital business

Continuous Digital is a new management model for digital business. Agile software development was the first wave of process change for digital business. Now it is time to update management models and thinking.

This book describes the Continuous model, a world in which technology development drives the business and the business drives technology.

Continuous Digital book cover

Project Myopia

Why Projects Damage Software #NoProjects – a companion to Continuous Digital.

Projects fail. Some say 40% of all IT projects fail, some say 70%. And it has been that way for years.

Each project fails for its own reasons but they all share one thing in common: the Project Model. Could it be the project model itself which creates failure?

Project Myopia

Little Book about Requirements and User Stories

Heuristics for requirements in an agile world

Little Book of User Stories

Watch this video introduction to Little – This book was written because, while User Stories look easy, I found I was answering the same questions again and again.

“How do I make my user stories smaller?”

“What is the right size for a user story?”

“What is the difference between an Epic and a Story?”

“And where do Tasks and Sub-tasks fit in?

Print, ebook and audio book versions available.

User Stories by Example – is an online course developed from Little Book to prepare students ot use User Stories in real life. Use code WebDiscount for a 20% discount on available courses.


Xanpan

Team Centric agile Software Development

A cross between XP and Kanban… Is an example of a roll-your-own method… Is team centric Agile… Is distilled from Allan Kelly’s own experiences running development teams and then helping multiple teams adopt Agile working methods and practices. Xanpan draws ideas from Kanban and Lean, XP and Scrum, Product Management and Business…


More about Xanpan

Video: Allan Kelly previews Xanpan at BCS Lean Kanban Day conference 2013 (slides on slideshare) and Xanpan extended presentation from DevWeek London 2014.

Blogs about Xanpan: Origins of Xanpan, Planned and Unplanned work in Xanpan and Refining the Process.

Plus, the unfinished book 2 of Xanpan, Management and the Team.

The Xanpan book

Business Patterns for Software Developers

Business patterns for software developers book cover
Business patterns for software developers

“Wow, the best reference set I have seen for people working on business issues” Amazon review

You know all about your software product but could do with some help in understanding the strategic side of things. If so, this book is the one–stop resource you′ll need in order to become a successful software entrepreneur. A step–by–step route that needs to be followed in order to understand business strategy and operations.

Read more about Business Patterns for Software Developers and the patterns. (Published by John WIley, 2012.)



Changing Software Development

Learning to be agile

Changing Software Development Learning to be Agile is a study in changing the software development process. At a practical level it sets out to help the reader change the way software is created.Changing Software Development considers learning to be the vital tool in the change process. In doing so it blends the fields of management and software development.

The book argues that software development as primarily a learning activity and software developers are at the cutting edge of the twenty-first century knowledge economy.

Pulished by John Wiley, 2008.

Fun fact: the book subtitle was intended to be “learning to be agile”, this implies a oneness between learning and agile. This sub-title is given on the inner pages but somehow, on the cover, “be” became “become.”

Changing Software Development, also available in Japanese.

Changing Software Development Japanese translation

Chapters and contributions to books by other authors

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