Teaching Tip Leveraging Scrum to Increase Student Engagement and Skill Building in Information Security Management

Information systems courses must adapt to meet the unprecedented demand for well-trained information security (InfoSec) professionals, but they cannot competently fill this gap without also ensuring that students are fluent and confident in foundational skills, both technical and behavioral. How to teach behavioral topics in InfoSec management is not as well covered as topics such as how to configure and apply technology-based security tools. This teaching tip describes how we leveraged the flexibility of the Scrum framework to adapt an InfoSec Management course to meet industry demands. We utilized the framework to provide a mechanism for students to tailor material to their interests while still reinforcing core InfoSec Management content. Following the application of this framework, students reported greater confidence in their ability to pursue InfoSec careers, greater understanding of InfoSec, and additionally found the course interesting and enjoyable. This teaching tip will interest anyone teaching InfoSec Management from a top-down approach as well as those looking to adapt introductory courses in InfoSec or other concept-heavy courses to appeal to a broad base of students.