Peer Pressure as the Path to Secure Coding | Securosis Blog

Why do you think we have daily scrum meetings? We do it so you remember what you are supposed to be working on, and we do it in front of all your peers so you feel the shame of falling behind. That’s why we ask everyone in the room to participate. These little sessions are especially helpful at waking up those 20-something team members who were up all night partying with their ‘bros’, or drinking Guinness and watching Manchester United till the wee hours of the morning. You know who you are.

We have ‘Sprints’ for the same reason universities have exams: to get you to do the coursework. It’s your opportunity to say, “Oh, S$^)#, I forgot to read those last 8 chapters,” and start cramming for the exam. Only at work you start cramming from the deadline. 30 day sprints just provide more opportunities to prod developers with the stick than, say, 180 day waterfall cycles.

I think this is an excellent observation, and I’m going to build it into any appsec program I design from now on. Basically, there has to be a way of putting light on both failure and success.