Rising is credited as having played a major role in having "moved the pattern approach from design into corporate change.
"[11] The study The scrum software development process for small teams by Rising and Norman S. Janoff is cited as first published study in which the scrum, a development process for small teams which includes a series of "sprints" which each last typically between one and four weeks,[12][13] was tested in real-life projects.
[14] The study has been cited for showing "that nonhierarchical teams work more effectively through the complex iterations and time-consuming gestation of a software program" and that "they gain strength through shared successes and failures".
[16] She is author of Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas, co-authored with Mary Lynn Manns and published 2004.
[17] Rising has been keynote speaker at the agile 2007 conference (topic: "Are agilists the bonobos of software development?