Author news: Q&A with author and consultant Don Reifer

Yesterday we blogged about Don Reifer’s new Microsoft Press book, Software Change Management: Case Studies and Practical Advice (ISBN: 9780735664753):

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 Reifer 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 prototype 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.

You can read an interview with Don about the book, conducted by Ry Crozier of iTnews, here.

The interview begins like this:

iTnews: Perhaps you can start by talking me through the origins of the latest book for Microsoft Press. How long has it been in development and what did you set out wanting to show?

Reifer: For the last 40-plus years I've been a change agent working within organisations and then a consultant advising organisations on how to make changes. I'm a numbers guy, too. I've been someone who has used the numbers to help justify the changes and make them compelling to management.

I've been thinking for about five years about the book and I started writing it earlier this year. Really the book is a compilation of case studies. When I thought about change management there are lots of articles and people who talk about it, but they talk about it in the abstract. The real genesis and focus of the book is to provide examples, positive and negative, that can act as models for people who are going about trying to introduce change into a wide range of organisations.

Enjoy!