Software Strategy

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.

Master SaaS sales and accelerate recurring revenue in 30 days—even if you’ve never closed a software deal before. Are you tired of generic sales advice that doesn’t translate to SaaS? Struggling to shorten sales cycles, overcome endless objections, or keep churn from killing your quota? Have you tried “plug-and-play” tools or hired star reps, only to watch your pipeline stall? If so, you’re not alone—and you’re in the right place. Most SaaS sales pros crave a repeatable, SaaS-specific playbook to turn demos into deals, boost MRR, and build a sales team that scales. My SaaS ...

Between 55 and 75 percent of all enterprise software implementations fail. The average cost overrun is 189 percent. Only one in four ERP projects is considered successful by the organizations that paid for them. These numbers have not improved in thirty years. This is not a coincidence. It is by design. In Welcome to the Machine, digital transformation expert Eric Kimberling pulls back the curtain on the trillion-dollar ecosystem of technology vendors, system integrators, and analyst firms that profits enormously — and systematically — from your organization's failure. He calls it the ...

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BUILDING AN APP-BASED BUSINESS Do you have a great app idea but no coding skills? ‘How to Make an App Business’ contains no get-rich-quick talk, but just exactly what you need to go from idea to app business. ‘How to Make an App Business’ guides you all the way from idea to launching your app and making a business out of it. The book covers proven and essential steps to build a killer app, get your app off the ramp with solid marketing, and make a viable business. From this book you will learn how to: Build and test early prototypes before starting programming ...

The Systems Thinker's Advantage: Why the Rarest Skill in Software Is the Only One AI Can't Replace AI can write your code. It can't see your system. The software industry is splitting in two. On one side: developers whose value was translating requirements into code — now watching AI do it faster and cheaper. On the other: developers who see the whole system — the feedback loops between technology, organizations, markets, and human behavior — and who thrive precisely because AI makes that interconnection more complex, not less. This book is for developers who want to be on the right ...

By 2030, 0% of IT work will be done by humans without AI. That's not speculation—it's the forecast from Gartner's survey of 700+ CIOs. The question isn't whether AI will transform software engineering. It's whether you'll be ready when it does. Right now, 84% of developers use AI tools daily. AI generates nearly half of all production code. And the engineers who've mastered this shift are pulling ahead—fast. The AI-Augmented Engineer is the first data-backed career roadmap for software engineers navigating the biggest transformation since high-level programming languages. No hype. No ...

There are few people we admire more than the Founders and Leaders of software companies who have the courage, determination and, some might say, sheer madness to put their livelihoods and reputation on the line, to leave their own ‘dent in the universe’. It's a day to day, up at dawn, pride swallowing siege to lead such a business. And we know this for a fact because we’ve walked in your shoes many times. Over the last 25 years, we’ve been involved in the start-up, scale up and exit of several successful technology businesses, that between them have realized close to billion dollars...

Stop selling your manual coding labor. Decouple your expertise from the clock, escape the fractional CTO trap, and build high-margin technical advisory retainers. Most senior software engineers, systems architects, and database developers eventually hit an invisible income wall. Even after escaping full-time employment to consult independently, they accidentally recreate their old jobs—spending forty hours a week manually configuring servers, reviewing lines of code, and fighting technical fires. Traditional freelance advice tells you to increase your hourly rate or scale up an agency. ...

Stop living at the mercy of the corporate direct deposit loop. De-risk your exit, eliminate household financial panic, and build an unbreachable liquidity citadel to fund your technical sovereignty. Most senior software engineers, database architects, and technology leads earn massive six-figure salaries, yet they remain fundamentally trapped on the corporate treadmill. They believe they stay because of career stability, but the brutal truth is an architectural failure of money management: their personal balance sheets are disorganized, lifestyle inflation has consumed their surplus capital...

Unlock the Power of ChatGPT to Transform Your Marketing Strategy Marketing is evolving faster than ever — and artificial intelligence is now the competitive advantage separating average teams from high-performing ones. ChatGPT for Marketing Managers is a practical, results-driven guide designed specifically for marketing professionals who want to use AI tools to increase productivity, improve campaign performance, and drive measurable growth. If you are overwhelmed with content creation, SEO optimization, campaign planning, performance reporting, and stakeholder presentations — this ...

Software License Millions is a practical, eye‑opening, and highly actionable guide for entrepreneurs, consultants, and digital creators who want to build scalable income streams through software licensing. Instead of treating licensing as a complex legal maze or a strategy reserved for large corporations, the book reframes it as a clear, accessible pathway—one that allows everyday innovators to turn their ideas, tools, and digital assets into recurring revenue. It introduces readers to the License Ladder, a step‑by‑step framework for moving from small licensing deals to high‑value...

“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.

Artificial Intelligence is changing every industry—but most organizations don't know where to begin. Many companies recognize AI's potential but struggle with the same questions: Where should we start? Which AI applications should we build first? How do we prioritize AI projects that deliver measurable business value? Who should be involved in the process? How do we move from prototypes to secure, reliable production systems? Enterprise AI Strategy and Implementation provides a practical, business-focused roadmap for successfully planning, prioritizing, and implementing AI initiatives ...

Most technology organizations don’t have a talent problem. They have a backlog problem. In The Backlog Illusion, Steve Taplin and Chris Horvat of Sonatafy Technology reveal why modern software teams can look highly productive while the actual delivery grinds to a halt. Beneath the surface lies a systemic failure: a backlog that has quietly evolved from a planning tool into a source of confusion, wasted effort, and missed opportunity. The Backlog Illusion breaks down why your backlog is a living reflection of every unclear decision, competing priority, and organizational compromise. Left ...

The quota just got bigger. The buyers got smarter. And AI just leveled the playing field — for those who know how to use it. Enterprise software selling has always rewarded the most prepared, most persistent, and most strategically sharp account executives. In 2026, there's a new variable in that equation: artificial intelligence. The AI-Enabled Sales Executive is the definitive playbook for quota-carrying enterprise AEs, sales development representatives, and sales leaders who want to use AI to close more business — without losing the human edge that actually wins deals. This is not a ...

Expert guidance on deploying secure, standardized AI integrations in any development context MCP For Dummies is the essential guide to getting started with the open-source standard that's transforming how businesses deploy AI. With Model Context Protocol (MCP), you can connect AI to real-world...

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.

Balanced scorecards and operational dashboards measure organizational performance, and Microsoft Excel is the tool used worldwide to create these scorecards and dashboards. This book covers time-proven step-by-step processes on how to guide executive teams and managers in creating scorecards and dashboards. It then teaches Excel developers how to create those scorecards and dashboards. This is the only book that converts theory into practice. 

The complete three-volume curriculum to break free from corporate tech burnout, productize your specialized engineering expertise, and build a high-yielding independent B2B consulting and software asset empire. Most senior software engineers, systems developers, and database architects eventually hit an invisible operational ceiling. They climb the corporate tech ladder only to find themselves trapped in the golden handcuff paradox—spending their weeks sitting through agonizing cross-departmental alignment loops, navigating reorg politics, and managing administrative compliance while ...

This is the 2nd edition of “Price To Scale”, co-authored with Jan Pasternak, ex-Head of Pricing at LinkedIn, Citrix, LogMeIn, Zoom, DocuSign, and Squarespace. ★★★★★ “‘Price To Scale’ is an absolute nominee for a title of 'mini-bible on pricing'” - Kirill Chabanov, COO at Aqua Cloud Featuring 13+ full length case studies from companies like Zoom, DocuSign, Narvar, Gainsight, Mixpanel, Nosto, Oracle, Verint, Rubrik, Pushpay, Gitlab, Coralogix and more. A timely chapter on Monetizing GenAI products with content Dr Sundeep Teki, ex-Head of AI at Swiggy, Amazon Alexa AI ...