The story of the Boeing engineers flying on the test flights is a perfect example of "skin in the game" (from Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb).
Here's what I wrote about that in a blog post on Antifragility and SW development:
At the end of the book, there is a chapter on ethics that Taleb calls “skin in the game”. To have skin in the game, you should share both in the upside and downside. Taleb quotes the 3,800 year old Hammurabi’s code: “If a builder builds a house and the house collapses and causes the death of the owner – the builder shall be put to death”. It is interesting to view this from a software development perspective. I have never worked on software where people’s lives were in danger if the software failed, but I would not be willing to submit to Hammurabi’s code if I did. But I think a little less extreme form of skin in the game is actually very good. Being on call for example. If the software you wrote fails, you may get called in the middle of the night to help fix it. I have been on call at most of the places I have worked in the past, and I think it has a lot of benefits. It gives you an incentive to be very thorough, both in development and testing. It also forces you to make the software debuggable – otherwise you yourself will suffer. Another way of introducing skin in the game is dog-fooding – using the software you are developing in your daily work. I have never worked on software that we have been able to dog-food, but I think that is another great practice.
Here's what I wrote about that in a blog post on Antifragility and SW development:
At the end of the book, there is a chapter on ethics that Taleb calls “skin in the game”. To have skin in the game, you should share both in the upside and downside. Taleb quotes the 3,800 year old Hammurabi’s code: “If a builder builds a house and the house collapses and causes the death of the owner – the builder shall be put to death”. It is interesting to view this from a software development perspective. I have never worked on software where people’s lives were in danger if the software failed, but I would not be willing to submit to Hammurabi’s code if I did. But I think a little less extreme form of skin in the game is actually very good. Being on call for example. If the software you wrote fails, you may get called in the middle of the night to help fix it. I have been on call at most of the places I have worked in the past, and I think it has a lot of benefits. It gives you an incentive to be very thorough, both in development and testing. It also forces you to make the software debuggable – otherwise you yourself will suffer. Another way of introducing skin in the game is dog-fooding – using the software you are developing in your daily work. I have never worked on software that we have been able to dog-food, but I think that is another great practice.
http://henrikwarne.com/2014/06/08/antifragility-and-software...