An interview, not a survey.
Phase 1 of the RIVER research program is a series of structured interviews with practitioners and leaders at organizations operating in the release era.
Qualitative grounding, before quantitative claims.
RIVER (Realized Impact and Value Evolution Reporting) is a measurement framework for the full value chain of software delivery, currently a thesis. Its claims are practitioner-grounded but not yet empirically formalized; formalization is what the research program produces.
Phase 1 is the program's qualitative grounding: twenty to thirty structured interviews with practitioners across a range of organizations, synthesized into the framework's first calibration. Phase 2 is a pilot quantitative survey. Phase 3 is an annual longitudinal report modeled on DORA, the DevOps Research and Assessment program. The framework cannot earn its evidentiary basis without practitioner input at this stage, and Phase 1 is the mechanism for getting that input rigorously.
People who run, or work close to, the deploy-release seam.
Phase 1 is designed for people whose daily work touches the operational seam where deployed code becomes a release. The interview will draw on what you have actually shipped and operated, so the right participant is someone with hands-on practice rather than only strategic vantage.
The practitioner tier
The interview instrument is calibrated for engineering managers running product-aligned teams, product managers and senior product leaders close to release decisions, and SRE and operations leaders running guardrails, monitoring, and post-deploy operations. If you sit in this tier, you are who Phase 1 is built around.
Director-level and C-suite
Conversations at this level are also part of the program: with engineering, product, or platform directors; with VPs and CTOs responsible for delivery performance; and with founders at organizations where these roles are not yet differentiated. They sharpen the organizational picture, alongside the practitioner-tier interviews rather than instead of them.
You should consider volunteering if at least some of the following are true:
- Your team practices, or is moving toward, progressive or reversible release.
- Deploy and release are operationally distinct events in your environment, even if the discipline around them is still emerging.
- You have shipped a release that produced (or did not produce) the outcome you expected, and you have opinions about why.
- You have been asked, or are about to be asked, whether the work your team is doing is generating value commensurate with its cost.
If your organization ships in a single binary event from commit to all users, RIVER is not built for your operating regime, and Phase 1 is not the right fit. The framework is honest about that boundary; the page on what RIVER is goes into detail.
A single interview, structured but conversational.
The interview follows a structured guide, but the structure is there to make sure the conversation covers the right ground, not to constrain it. You will be asked about your practice in your words, and the interviewer will follow the threads worth following.
The interview covers how your team currently practices release: what gets exposed, to whom, in what stages. It turns to what you measure today, and what you wish you could measure. It draws on specific recent releases and what you learned from them, in your terms. It works through your reaction to RIVER's structural claims (delta typing, success-signal declaration, and the maturity ladder), and where the framework's vocabulary fits your reality and where it misses.
Less than a vendor study, more than a survey.
Participants are not compensated.
The strongest value the interview produces, in the program's view, is the chance to articulate, with structure, what you have been carrying around informally about how your team measures and operates release.
Defaults you can rely on, and what is negotiable.
Phase 1 follows research-grade data handling. The defaults are conservative because the framework's credibility depends on participants being able to speak candidly.
The defaults
- Attribution
- All interviews are not-for-attribution by default. No quote, paraphrase, or organizational detail will be used in published findings without your explicit approval.
- Organization names
- Organization names are masked in published findings. Where industry context is necessary, only the size band and sector are disclosed.
- Recordings
- Recordings are used only for note-taking and synthesis. They are not published, not shared with third parties, and are deleted after the synthesis is complete.
- Review
- Any quote, paraphrase, or organizational detail used in published findings will be sent to you for approval before publication.
If you want different terms, fully off-the-record or fully on-the-record with explicit attribution, those are negotiable and will be agreed before the interview begins. Dr. Linnéa Parsons Willis, one of the program's principals, has formal training in research ethics; the data handling reflects that.
Phase 1 is small enough that the right way to volunteer is direct: an email with a brief note about who you are and what you would be drawing from. A structured signup form will replace this when the program scales; for now, the email approach matches Phase 1's size.
tcort@cortsystem.devBrief context. Your role and team scope. Your organization (rough size and industry are enough; specific name is optional). One sentence on the release practice you would be drawing from. Whether you have a preferred week or two for scheduling.