The beauty of Shu-Ha-Ri as an Agile Adoption Pattern, and why it should be used more
The Japanese have gifted many management principles and practices to the world — Kaizen, Kanban, Ringi, Nemawashi. The Agilists have extracted one more — Shu Ha Ri, from Aikido (a Japanese martial art).
Aikido, describes 3 overlapping phases of learning and development of a student of the martial art.
Shu: The student learns and focuses on only the practices of the art and does not worry about the underlying principles.
Ha: With the techniques completely memorized and perfected, the student begins to evaluate the philosophy. By questioning and constant self reflection the student can develop a deeper grasp and understand. This is the step required before ultimate mastery.
Ri: The student now transcends what is known and taught .The student becomes a master — a practitioner capable of original thought on the subject and someone who can expand the limits while keeping true to the original philosophy.
The above are adoption patterns which students see as they progress in their learning journey. Agile masters such as Martin Fowler and Organizations such as Disciplined Agile Consortium have recommended using Shu-Ha-Ri as a technique.
However, I have observed that this tool is not shared with folks beginning their agile journey. Coaches/Trainers explain this concept to leadership and management executives in big transformation projects, but sometimes forget that individuals are as much in need of this. Considering how simple, elegant and powerful this concept is; I believe it should be given to everyone right from the get go.
We have to remember that Agile is “Easy to Do, Difficult to Be”. When we train our teams and individuals to do agile, we bring their focus down to a very small set of established practices — standups, reviews etc(Shu) . What we forget is that for newly transitioned members, agile is still a big unknown . It is scary and uncomfortable.
Having tools like Shu-Ha-Ri help in removing the uncertainty and easing the discomfort. As with any new learning there are many many unknowns. Accepting that this is the same experience for everybody in the initial days imparts confidence. The team knows that with time, the journey will get more pleasant and their grasp on agile will improve. Individuals can trace how their knowledge has improved and where they are headed.
Looking at my own experience, I can see how I started, familiarizing with the theory(Shu), learning the scrum guide, reading multiple books detailing each role, event and artifact, and generally accepting that all that is written on agile is the gospel truth.
And then slowly I started asking the WHY(Ha). I now understand that I have much to learn from the masters but I have the ability to evaluate practices and question accepted theories. Getting to the next stage is the natural step for me and I understand the transformation that I need to go through to get there: The Shu-Ha-Ri model clearly lays it out.
The true masters(Ri) dont argue on semantics needlessly- something which happens more frequently than the debates in our parliament. The masters, focus on how to achieve the desired result and make the customers and organizations(individual,team) happy. They remain true to the philosophy of Being Agile while not being afraid to test something new and fail.
Using Shu-Ha-Ri and self-feedback has helped me track my journey. Can you track yours?
Note: There are many other models Dreyfus, Clark etc available to us and are similar in more ways than one, but I still believe that Shu-Ha-Ri is the simplest and easiest to follow
