Why is it so difficult to change organizations? What does it really take to make “process improvement” yield measurable results? For more than 30 years, Donald Riefer has been guiding software teams through the technical, organizational, and people issues that must be managed in order to make meaningful process changes—and better products. This practical guide draws from his extensive experience, featuring 11 case studies spanning the public and private sectors and even academia. Each case study illuminates the original conditions; describes options and recommendations; details reactions, outcomes, and lessons learned; and provides essential references and resources.

• Eleven case studies provide insightful, empirical data from real-world organizations


• Provides a broad view across organizational settings and factors, such as personnel, and technical environments, including cloud, Agile, and open source options


• Illuminates the hard-won lessons, tradeoffs, and impacts—with advice on how to engineer successful, sustainable changes yourself