Showing results by author "Allan Kelly" in All Categories

OKRs are about goals bigger than the next story, or even epic. They prioritise purpose and strategy over the ever looming, high maintenance backlogs we all know too well. OKRs are important to agile teams because they deal with the big things, they inspire forward thinking, encourage engage senior leaders, and help debug strategy. Acclaimed author Allan Kelly describes why you should use OKRs, how to write them successfully, how to set measurable KRs, execute against OKRs in an agile environment to deliver outcomes, and the pitfalls and problems to avoid so you can deliver your outcomes.

“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?” Allan Kelly found himself answering these questions, and similar ones, again and again so...he sat down to write the answers and this book was born.

An all-time favorite story of how a slave named Androcles, by plucking a thorn out of a lion's paw, saved his own life when he was thrown to the lions years later before thousands of cheering people in the Roman Coliseum.

The classic Christmas story of the fantastic dream of a little girl named Marie. She dreamt she saw an army of mice, led by the evil Mouse King, attack her precious Nutcracker, her favorite Christmas toy.

A children's favorite: how a mighty bowman saved his country's freedom by splitting an apple on his brave son's head with his bow and arrow.

Long, long ago, when the world was still young and hopeful, there lived a girl named Pandora. One day, a beautiful mysterious box was left in her cottage. She was warned not to open it. But she did open the box, and all of a sudden a swarm of hideously ugly creatures flew out, bringing with them pain and suffering. Then, at last, a bright glistening fairy flew out to bring new hope to the world.

When the heathen King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, he took a religious young Jew named Daniel back to the city of Babylon. But when Daniel refused to worship the King's golden idols, Daniel was thrown into a den of lions. His life was saved because of his undying faith in God.

A young shepherd wanted excitement, so he ran through his town shouting, "A wolf is attacking my sheep". Instantly, people rushed out to capture the wolf, but there was no wolf. However, the next day, when a wolf did attack his sheep, no one came to help.

Projects fail. Some say 40 percent of all IT projects fail, some say 70 percent. 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? In this tour de force Allan Kelly explains why the project model is a poor fit for managing software development.

The heartfelt story of a father whose love for his two sons was badly split. One son took off on a life of wild living, while the other son stayed home and worked hard on the family farm.

The fascinating tale of how God told Jonah to go warn the people of the ancient city of Niniveh to change their evil ways or face destruction. At first, Jonah refused to go, but changed his mind after being swallowed by a monster fish.

Xanpan is...a cross between XP and Kanban...is an example of a roll-your-own method...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 analysis, and many other places. Allan tells the Xanpan story through a series of boards which tell the story of different teams.

A poor fisherman once caught a magic flounder who told him that he could bring anything the fisherman wanted. Instantly, the fisherman wished for a cozy cottage to replace his tumbledown shack...and the wish was granted. But his wife kept wishing for a mansion, then a palace. But when she wished to be God, the flounder was killed by a giant wave, which brought them back to the tumbledown shack.

Here is the dramatic story of Esther, the young Jewish bride of the king of ancient Persia, now called Iran. Esther had heard that the king's wicked minister, Haman, was plotting to kill her people. She exposed Haman to the king, and Haman was hanged in the city square.

Here is the dramatic story of how Paul Revere's historic ride sparked the American Revolution for freedom from King George of England.

The famous story of how a young boy named David protected ancient Israel from the Philistine enemy by killing their leader, the giant Goliath, with a single stone from his Slingshot.

An all-time favorite: how a little boy saved Holland from the rampaging ocean by sticking his finger into a dangerous leaking hole in the dike.

George Washington and many other Americans saw that this new country needed central government to keep peace at home - and gain respect abroad. In Philadelphia, 55 men argued out a strong, yet flexible U.S. constitution - a set of laws by which people could govern themselves. It wasn't perfect, but it seemed to George - who presided over the continental Congress - "A little short of a miracle".

Listen to the dramatic story of how a young seamstress in Philadelphia created the first American flag, which united the 13 colonies in their fight for freedom.

Of his 12 sons, the mighty Jacob loved his 11th, Joseph, most of all...which made the 10 other sons dislike, even hate, Joseph...especially after Jacob had made a beautiful coat of many colors for Joseph. So the brothers secretly sold Joseph to merchants heading for Egypt. However, years later, Joseph saved his brothers from a devastating drought, where they founded the nation of Israel.