When was the last time you as a developer were hoping to open a port on a server and thought about the ramifications of the same ?

When was the last time when you decided to setup a new file transfer said, "Hmm .. I better write a Security Test acceptance criteria first for my stories/tasks" ?

We as developers have inherited a huge responsibility. And this cannot be better summarised than the Rugged Manifesto @ https://ruggedsoftware.org

It talks about "I am rugged because I refuse to be a source of vulnerability or weakness." We as developers, not only need to follow clean code & emergent design but we also need to ensure that our code performs for the most latent needs, which includes being rugged to attacks, unintended use & being robust even with changing times.

For many of us the Security Tester is a mythical creature who might turn up at dusk and at dawn send us a PDF report. For some of us who work in Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) she/he might be loaned to us from the Shared Services.

Lets face it, there aren't many Security Analysts out there to benefit every Agile team on the face of the earth.

Udacity expects that we need 1.8 million cyber-security experts by 2022 !!! https://in.udacity.com/course/cybersecurity-nanodegree--nd1337

There is an urgent need to free up our security experts and shift left basic security tests through automation. We also need to integrate Security testing in our CI/CD pipeline for early detection and early fixes.

Ultimately for our users, business sponsors, shareholders and last but not the least for the pride which we put in our work, it doesn't matter where the weak link is .... it ultimately hurts us all.

"I am rugged, not because it is easy, but because it is necessary and I am up for the challenge."

Would you like to know what is common between Agatha Christie, John Lennon & Thomas Edison ?
Would you like to know how to feed your idea funnel systematically?

We know that everyone is in search of a "Disruptive Innovation".
It has definitely captured our imagination.

But there is still so much left to do in the world & so much can be done on existing products & services.
We believe that a balanced approach towards innovation will help us make this world a better place.

For thousands of years, innovators & creative geniuses have used patterns in their inventions, usually without realising the same.
In the search of a serendipitous idea or innovation we often tend to ignore innovation which can be done methodically or incrementally.

Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) is one such set of techniques which can be applied to any product or process. These techniques help us in breaking our biases towards how things are and how they work , namely functional fixedness and structural fixedness.

Subsequently we can enhance or create an alternative to our product or service
which might look weird initially, but given time & refinement, would be surprisingly useful.

The 5 Tools of Systematic Inventive Thinking along with it’s “Closed World Principle” can help you kick-start or supplement your innovation journey in a well defined manner.