BS in Business Administration – Quantitative Methods, California State University at Northridge, 1968.

MS in Computer Science, University of California at Los Angeles, 1972. Thesis title: "Natural Language Inquiry Systems".

PhD-oriented postgraduate study in the schools of applied science and engineering at UCLA and the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Doctorate in Education, 2005. Dissertation title: "The Parsons game: The first simulation of Talcott Parsons' theory of action." Doctoral fellow, Executive Leadership, the George Washington University, Washington DC, 1992 to 2004.

Certified ScrumMaster, October 2003. Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, January 2008. Elevated to Senior Member status in the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers and in the Association for Computing Machinery, September 2008.

Recent publications and presentations include:

September 2008 – Guest speaker at the Society for Software Quality, San Diego Chapter monthly meeting, on "Software reliability: What is it, how to measure it, and how to obtain it."

July 2008 – Guest speaker at the American Society for Quality, San Diego Chapter monthly meeting, on "Is there a disconnect between organizational strategy and quality?"

May 2008 – Guest speaker at the International Council on Systems Engineering, San Diego Chapter monthly meeting, on "Combining systems & software engineering: Who’s in charge of organizational aspects?"

March 2008 –  "Is there a disconnect between organizational strategy and quality?" Qualcomm Inc., San Diego, CA.

February 2008 – Guest speaker at the San Diego Software Process Improvement Network monthly meeting on "A new way to conduct software inspections -- with data to show effectiveness."

February 2008 – Guest speaker at the eXtreme Programming San Diego monthly meeting on "It all started with bumpers in an automobile plant: What is lean and why does it matter to software development & management?"

March 2007 – Guest speaker at the eXtreme Programming San Diego monthly meeting on how to use project/product risk to select an appropriate life cycle and software engineering methods, based primarily on the work of Boehm and Turner, in their article, "Using risk to balance agile and plan-driven methods."

March 2007 – "(Secrets of a) Process Whisperer," Software Engineering Process Group Conference, Austin, Texas.

February 2007 – "I'm the Lead!!?? Now what do I do? - Continuing the conversation," San Diego Software Process Improvement Network.

February 2007 – "Best commercial practices for acquiring systems of systems," University of Southern California's Executive Workshop in the Center for Systems and Software Engineering.

December 2006 – Acknowledged for his work on A Process Research Framework, the first major publication of the three-year work of the International Process Research Consortium, sponsored by the Software Engineering Institute. "We wish first to acknowledge Dr. Stan Rifkin, who played several different roles for us. He was our discussant at our first workshop, challenging our thinking and synthesizing what he heard from us as he listened to members' initial ideas. He then served as a reviewer, editor, and writer on framework drafts. We thank him for his several invaluable contributions."

July 2006 – "How do I know if I can learn from your experience?" Washington DC area Software Process Improvement Network program, an expanded version of the SEPG 2006 presentation of the same name.

June 2006 – "Why do I have to learn about organizations? I am a software engineer/computer scientist!" International Conference on Computer Science and its Applications, at National University in San Diego.

March 2006 – "How much should we spend on quality assurance?" San Diego chapter of the Society for Software Quality program.

March 2006 – "Explaining success & failure: Value-based software engineering," joint meeting of the San Diego Software Process Improvement Network and the San Diego chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery.

March 2006 – "Combining systems & software engineering: Who's in charge of organizational aspects?" annual research review and executive workshop, Center for Software Engineering, University of Southern California.

March 2006 – "How do I know if I can learn from your experience?" Software Engineering Process Group Conference, Nashville, Tennessee.

June 2005 – "What is the best way to develop software? Continuing the conversation about agility and plan-driven methods," San Diego Software Process Improvement Network, which began the fifth year of SD SPIN.

June 2005 – "Appropriate life cycles depend upon enterprise strategy," Development and Deployment of Product Software, the first ever workshop on product software, held in conjunction with the 3rd International Conference on Computer Science and its Application, National University, San Diego.

April 2005 – "Is there a misfit between the CMM/CMMI and corporate strategy?" Intel Software Process Improvement Network meeting.

March 2005 – "Learning from a great many sources: Summary of SEPG Conferences since 1988," Software Engineering Process Group Conference, Seattle, Washington.

February 2005 – "Is the CMM an impediment to innovation?" at the University of Limerick, Ireland, under the sponsorship of the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre.

October 2004 – "Combining operational excellence and product innovativeness," keynote address presented at the Bosch Software Engineering Conference 2004, Stuttgart, Germany.

August 2004 – "What one bit of advice would you give to a new software manager," panelist at San Diego Software Industry Council, with which Mr. Rifkin is active.

August 2004 – "25 years of unit testing experiment experience," presented at the Society for Software Quality, San Diego.

August 2004 – Only invited discussant at the kick-off of the Software Engineering Institute's International Software Process Research Consortium.

January & July 2004 – Presentation on industrial strength software project estimation tools (Parts I & II) at the San Diego Software Process Improvement Network.

November 2003 –  "Two good reasons software processes are not adopted," presented at the Southern California Software Process Improvement Network.

August 2003 –  "Why new software processes are not adopted," a literature review of 175 references that appears as a chapter in vol. 59 of Advances in Computers.

July/August 2003 – "How to select a software estimation tool," in "The marriage of estimation and negotiation," by Michael Mah, Software Testing & Quality Magazine, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 29-33.

May 2003 – "The differences between the CMMI (the new CMM) and the (old) CMM: beyond mapping the two," presented at the San Diego Software Process Improvement Network meeting.

May 2003 – "Two good reasons why new software processes are not adopted," presented at the workshop on Adoption-Centered Software Engineering, part of the International Conference on Software Engineering, Portland, Oregon.

April 2003 – "When the project absolutely must get done: Marrying the organization chart with the precedence diagram," presented at the San Diego Chapter of the Society for Concurrent Product Development.

February 2003 – "Software quality process: Is it a square peg in a round hole?" Distinguished lecture sponsored by The Center for Applications Development and Software Engineering and the Institute for Scientific Computing Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.

October 2002 – "What I would do differently if I wrote the SEPG Guide today," presented at the Southern California Software Process Improvement Network meeting.

September 2002 – "Why is it (so) difficult to implement a function point analysis or measurement program?" keynote address at the International Function Point User's Group meeting, San Antonio, Texas.

August 2002 – "The effect of software process improvement on business value," inaugural Distinguished Speaker Series at Allstate Insurance, Northbrook, Illinois.

August 2002 – "What I would do differently if I wrote the SEPG Guide today," presented at the Los Angeles Software Process Improvement Network meeting.

July & October 2002 – "Is the CMM an impediment to innovation?" Presented as a keynote address at the EDS [Electronic Data Systems] annual CMM Conference.

June 2002 – "Is process improvement irrelevant to produce new era software?" (keynote) and "Agility vs. maturity: The wrong question," on the panel "Agility vs. maturity: Will they ever meet?", at the 7th European Conference on Software Quality, Helsinki, Finland.

Convened the first ever "Customer Intimate Summit for Software Development Organizations," in Fairfax, Virginia.

February 2002 – "What I would do differently if I wrote the SEPG Guide today," (keynote) "Capability maturity models are not relevant in modern software development environments," (panel), and "Son of behavioral clues: a framework for understanding organizations," (with Judah Mogilensky), all at the Software Engineering Process Group Conference, Phoenix, February 2002.

March 2001-February 2002 – Co-Chair (Program Chair) of the Software Engineering Institute's Software Engineering Process Group Conference, Phoenix, February 2002.

August 2001 – "Process Improvements: Is there a misfit with Organizational Strategy?" Invited Distinguished Lecture, US Federal Aviation Administration.

July/August 2001 – "Why software process innovations are not adopted." IEEE Software, July/August, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 110-112.

May/June 2001 – "What makes measuring software so hard?" IEEE Software, May/June, vol. 10, no. 3., pp. 41- 45.

April 2001 – "Climbing the SEI CMM makes a difference on software projects," IT Metrics Strategies, vol. VII, no. 4, p. 1+.

March 2001 – Software Engineering Process Group Conference, track chair for special topics, New Orleans.

December 2000 – "Why is it so difficult to implement the CMM? Is there a strategic mismatch?" Southern California Software Process Improvement Network.

October 2000 – "Discipline of Market Leaders and other impediments to implementing metrics," Quantitative Software Management Users Group meeting, McLean, Virginia.

September 2000 – "How to select software project macro-estimation tools," IT Metrics Strategies, vol. VI, no. 9, pp. 13-16.

June 2000 – "When the project absolutely must get done: Marrying the organization chart with the precedence diagram," International Conference on Software Engineering, Ireland.

June 2000 – "Program comprehension techniques improve software inspections: A case study." With Lionel Deimel, International Conference on Program Comprehension, Ireland.

May 2000 – "When a project absolutely must get done," IT Metrics Strategies, vol. VI, no. 5.

April 2000 – "Introduction to the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model for Software," webinar sponsored by Quality Software and Systems.

April 2000 – "The face of the competition [for philanthropic fund-raising over the Internet]." National Assembly, Washington DC.

March 2000 – Keynoter, track chairman, and paper and panel presenter, Software Engineering Process Group Conference, Seattle, Washington.

March 2000 – "Discipline of Market Leaders and other impediments to measurement," IT Metrics Strategies, vol. VI, no. 3, p. 1+.

January 2000 – Moderator and presenter at Annual Society for Software Quality Roundtable on software estimation, Oxon Hill, Maryland.

December 1999 – "When the project absolutely, positively must get done: Marrying the organization chart with the PERT diagram," Washington DC Software Process Improvement Network meeting.

December 1999 – "Discipline of Market Leaders and other accelerators to measurement," 24^th Annual Software Engineering Workshop, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

September 1999 – "Contingency theory meets project management," Conference on Human and Organizational Studies, George Washington Univ., Ashburn, Virginia

September 1999 – "Discipline of Market Leaders and other impediments to implementing software process improvement," SEI Symposium, Pittsburgh.

May 1999 – "Discipline of Market Leaders and other impediments to implementing software process improvement," SEI Workshop on Managing Software Innovation and Technology Change, Hidden Valley, Pennsylvania.

February 1999 – "Discipline of Market Leaders, Balanced Scorecard, and other impediments to measurement," Society for Software Quality, Maryland.

October 1998 – "A day of software measurement," Quality Assurance Association of Maryland.

March 1997 – "Closing the black hole of middle management," Panel convenor and moderator, with Byron Fiman, National SEPG Meeting, San Jose.

November 1996 – "Climbing the SEI maturity model makes a difference on software projects," and "Can software developers plan and manage quality improvement?" International Conference of the Israel Society for Quality, Jerusalem.

June 1996 – "The business case for software process improvement," Hewlett Packard Executive Seminar, Boston. Also September, Monterey, California.

May 1996 – "How real SEPGs overcome barriers to implementation: clever tactics from the field." With Byron Fiman at the National SEPG Meeting, Atlantic City.

April 1996 – "Parsons' General Theory of Action explains information technology adoption," International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 8.6 workshop, Larkspur, California.

March 1996 – "Measurement in practice," Litton/Planning Research Software Technology Leadership Conference, Santa Barbara.

February 1996 – "Towards a change agent's toolkit," Washington DC SPIN.

October 1995 – "Applying program comprehension techniques to improve software inspections," Birmingham, Alabama SPIN.

September 1995 – "Personal software process," Society for Software Quality, Washington DC Area Chapter.

August 1995 – "Software management and development processes at Microsoft," Washington DC SPIN.

May 1995 – "The business case for software process improvement," Atlanta SPIN.

May 1995 – "Applying program comprehension techniques to improve software inspections," with Lionel Deimel. Software Test, Analysis and Review (STAR) '95, San Diego, California.

November 1994 – "Applying program comprehension techniques to improve software inspections," with Lionel Deimel. Software Engineering Laboratory Annual Workshop, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

October 1994 – "The effect of software process improvement on the economics of government procurement." QSM Users Group keynote speaker.

April & August 1994 –  Co-author of "The effect of software process improvement on the economics of government procurement." SEPG National Meeting & SEI Annual Software Engineering Symposium.

March 1994 – Featured outside speaker at the MCI teamSE managers' meeting, "The future of software development."

June 1993 – "Streamlining the system development process," Lotus Forum, a symposium for Lotus Development Corporation's executives and largest customers' executives.

April 1993 – "The business case for software process improvement," Software Engineering Process Group National Meeting.

November 1992 – Invited plenary speaker at Applications of Software Measurement, "How to be successful in software measurement."

November 1992 – Invited speaker at the Northern California Chapter of the Project Management Institute, "Software process improvement for project managers."

November 1992 – Invited speaker at the Implementation Management Associates Users Forum, "Paradoxes of group life."

October 1992 – Featured speaker at Society for Information Management Symposium on "Implementing total quality management in information services."

April 1992 – Organizer and presenter at the 1992 first joint SEI/SPIN Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) Workshop.

April 1992 – Featured speaker at the Second GTE Software Engineering Conference. The only person to be asked to speak at both the First and Second.

March 1992 – Plenary speaker at the Development Center Institute Conference on "Managing Change."

March 1992 – Program chair emeritus for the annual National Security Industrial Association meeting on software quality and reliability assurance.

February 1992 – "The business case for software process improvement" as a panelist at the Annual National Conference on Software Technology – Ada. The Conference is sponsored by the Services, NASA, and the FAA.

January 1992 – Sole instructor for "In-house assessment of software development," the George Washington University Continuing Engineering Education Program.

January 1992 – Presented a two-day course on software process improvement on international television for the National Technological University.

January 1992 – Invited keynoter at the Pacific Bell Software Process Improvement Conference.

January 1992 – Invited to team with Watts Humphrey to take the affirmative side of a national debate on the value of improving software process maturity.

December 1991 – NASA Software Engineering Laboratory Workshop, "Measurement in Practice".

November 1991 – Data Processing Management Association, national conference on software improvement, "What your competitors are doing to improve their software."

August 1991 –  Invited to speak on "Measurement in Practice" at the Software Engineering Institute Affiliate Symposium, one of the very few non-SEIers so asked.

August 1991 – Invited keynoter at the Pacific Bell Software Process Improvement Conference.

April 1991 – Program chairman for the annual National Security Industrial Association meeting on software quality and reliability assurance.

April 1991 – Sole instructor for "In-house assessment of software development," the George Washington University Continuing Engineering Education Program.

January 1991 –  Invited to team with Harlan Mills to take the affirmative side of a national debate on the early use of change control and configuration management during software development.

November 1990 – Invited to speak on software measurement at the SEI-sponsored SEPG Workshop.

October 1990 –  Invited to speak on process improvement at the GTE corporate software engineering conference.

July 1990 – Invited to address a train-the-trainer's course for Total Quality Management (TQM) instructors at the Defense Systems Management College.

January 1990 – Invited to speak at the first Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association conference on computers and communications.

August 1989 – Invited to speak at the First National Software Quality Workshop at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

May 1989 – Invited by Major General Kind of the US Army Communications and Electronics Command to speak about how software can be developed in the spirit of TQM.

1985-86 Chairman of the Washington DC computer chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Won Best Chapter Award for 1985. Sat on the Washington DC IEEE Board of Directors. Member of IEEE and its technical societies: computers; engineering management; and systems, man, and cybernetics. Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (including the special interest group on software engineering). A founder of the Foundation for the Empirical Studies of Programmers. Charter member of the Editorial Board of Empirical Software Engineering journal. Member of the Academy of Management, Institute for Operations Research and Management Science, Project Management Institute, Society of Automotive Engineers, and System Dynamics Society. Formerly a member of the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Donated time to the Internet Strategies Committee of the United Way of America.

Have taught university continuing education, and graduate and undergraduate courses in computer science, software engineering, and telecommunications for over 20 years. Schools include American Univ., California State Univ. at Northridge, George Mason Univ., the George Washington Univ., National Univ., UCLA, and the University of California at San Diego Extension.

Experience – About 40 years in data processing, management consulting, software engineering, and computer science.

Master Systems Inc., Washington DC & San Diego - 1985 to present. Principal. Master Systems is devoted to improving software in organizations for whom software is strategic. Conducts improved SEI-style assessments and establishes long-term, post-assessment relationships with clients desiring to improve their software development processes, technology, and management. Focuses on implementing software improvements, particularly engineering and management process improvements, and includes services related to "how-to" training, research into software improvement mechanisms, and engages in client-specific consulting and studies.

Have established and sustained many software engineering process groups in support of clients' corporate-wide software process improvement initiatives. Successfully completed ISO 9000-3 TickIT auditor's course in England, and the Am. Society for Quality Control's Baldrige Award self-assessment training for service industries. Trained by the SEI in Software Capability Evaluation. Helped to found and now operate the San Diego Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN), formerly an active member of the Washington DC area SPIN, regular speaker at other area SPINs and the annual SEPG Conferences.

Originally started this firm at Red Cross' request to continue the work begun as national Director of Systems Development. High level management consulting and staff development. Managed entire software lifecycle. Prepared guide lines for: standardized methods and tools for systems development and design, screening and selection of a standardized DBMS, and human-computer interaction. For the US Marine Corps developed method-independent life cycle standards and process definitions; evaluated Information Engineering and Information Engineering Facility; reconciled structured analysis/structured design (SA/SD) with object-oriented development, particularly for Ada.

Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh – 1988 to 1990. The SEI is a Department of Defense-funded development center that is trying to transition DoD agencies and defense and aerospace software contractors to the state-of-the-art. Project leader in the Software Process Program and a recognized spokesman for software process improvement. Co-author of

Have been the project leader of the software process metrics effort, including serving on the Software Measurement Steering Committee, Software Metrics Definition Working Group, and the Software Acquisition Metrics Working group. Project leader for putting improvement into practice, process definition, government acquisition program office process improvement, cost/schedule/effort estimation, and software inspections.

Participated on the Process Definition Steering Committee. Have received SEI training in SEI-assisted assessment, self-assessment, and software capability evaluation. In addition have attended the SEI management of change course and have become certified by the authority that certified the SEI instructor. Attended one-week Total Quality Management (TQM) train-the-trainer course at Defense Systems Management College.

Have taught public and client courses in, attended, and contributed to SEI-assisted assessment. Have consulted to numerous software development organizations on their improvement action plans, SEPG activities, and overall process improvement efforts.

American Red Cross, National Headquarters, Washington DC – 1984 to 1985. National Director of Systems Development. Managed the requirements and software development of an ambitious five-year, $50 million project to standardize automation in the largest of Red Cross' 3,000 branches nationwide. Responsible for setting standards, selecting and managing vendors, and overall design and development of tools and end-user systems. Responsible for accounting for the Red Cross portion of the national blood supply and its quality. Responsible for administration of the total systems development function (scheduling, staffing, budgeting, management). The systems had to operate on three different types of incompatible computers with incompatible operating systems.

American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington DC – 1982 to 1984. Head of the Office of Information Systems and Services. Was chief information officer, reporting to CEO, of this prestigious general science organization. Managed the development and operation of all data processing. Installed an information center based on personal computers and departmental multi-user minis.

Independent consultant and educator, Southern California – 1978 to 1982. Developed an automated abstracting system for medical research. Put a data base up on a public access data base system (SDC's ORBIT). Developed a number of microprocessor based systems for small administrative applications. Taught digital electronics.

Stan Rifkin, Inc., Los Angeles – 1977 to 1978. President. This firm became the technical and programming resource for a subsidiary of Honeywell that manufactured and marketed a 3270-type terminal display system with a programmable controller. We developed software tools, communications packages, terminal emulators, and terminal- and communications-based applications.

Infotech, Los Angeles – 1976 to 1977. Vice President. Managed, marketed, helped develop, and taught an improved programmer productivity product. Learned the Jackson method from Jackson, the Orr method from Orr, and the Warnier method from Warnier's colleague.

Payment Systems Inc. (American Express), Los Angeles – 1975 to 1976. Resource on advanced technology, especially bank- and transaction-related. Expert on EFTS. Consulted to and delivered upper management presentations on solutions to automation concerns. Planned bank card products and services.

European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland – 1974 to 1975. Visiting Scientist. At this high-energy physics laboratory, helped design, test, and build a processor that was faster than the then-fastest computer (CDC 7600). Developed a general-purpose digital systems simulator in software. Taught compiler design.

Independent consultant and educator, Los Angeles – 1972 to 1974. Principal computer consultant on Career Development for Law Enforcement to the LA County Sheriff's Department. Simultaneously held joint appointment as associate professor at California State Univ. at Northridge in School of Business and Economics to teach data processing and in School of

Engineering to teach computer science. Also taught telecommunications at UCLA. Consultant on technology issues to largest Southern California telecommunications users; consultant to Telecommunications Association (TCA).

Planning Research Corporation, Los Angeles – 1969 to 1972. Systems Engineer. Designed and developed hardware and software interfaces, primarily telecommunications, for large-scale real-time transaction-oriented application. Developed orbiting satellite signal processor. Designed a number of wide-area telecommunications networks, primarily for data.

Lockheed, Burbank – 1969. Analyst/programmer. Worked at the Rye Canyon research laboratory on a real-time data collection system.

Independent consultant, Gothenberg, Sweden – 1968 to 1969. Consulted to executive vice president of Sweden's largest shipyard on a variety of centralization vs. decentralization issues. Modified existing IBM manufacturing planning programs in order to decrease run-time and storage by a factor of 100.