Chapter 1 · Practice 4 of 4
Aim for useful, not perfect: avoid the common anti-patterns
Why it matters
The Manifesto's anti-patterns describe the ways teams stall:
| Anti-pattern | What it looks like | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Admiration for the Problem | long analysis, no fixes | reach for practical, relevant solutions |
| Tendency to Overfocus | an hour on one exotic attacker | keep the big picture; parts of a model depend on each other |
| Perfect Representation | weeks polishing one diagram | create several simple views; each may show different problems |
| Hero Threat Modeler | one person does it all | everyone takes part |
Its values point the same way: a culture of finding and fixing design issues over checkbox compliance, doing threat modeling over talking about it, and continuous refinement over a single delivery.
In practice, a rough diagram on a whiteboard photo and ten well-chosen threats with tickets beat a perfect diagram with no decisions. Shostack also warns that people sometimes mistake the diagram for the whole threat model; the diagram is only the answer to question 1.