Agile Lessons Learned: Training at the Moment of Need

The high costs of IT training and tech support have encouraged technology firms to employ redesigned user interfaces (UI) to replace documentation and training.  By making their products intuitively obvious to use, vendors have stopped distributing user manuals and documentation. It would appear that the vendors of commodity software believe that training is the result of user interface failure. Unfortunately, cybersecurity training and awareness have resisted such UI simplification.

Perhaps it is time to apply lessons learned from agile software development and DevSecOps.  We need to train at the moment of need, not months before or after during the dreaded annual training drill.  We must take advantage of teachable moments by integrating training into the tools routinely used by our users and IT workforce. Security best practices training needs to be embedded into the programmer’s development environment. Security nudges should be incorporated into web browser and email client software.