Jen's Agile Cliff Notes - Shu Ha Ri

Have you ever heard of Shu Ha Ri before?  No?  Well, you will now, grasshopper!

Shu Ha Ri is a Japanese martial arts concept.  Remember Mr. Miyagi from the classic 1984 movie Karate Kid?  “Wax on, wax off.  Wax on, wax off.”  Shu Ha Ri describes the stages of learning to mastery.  Learning is not a linear progression!  It’s a never-ending process of continual growth and improvement.  You can easily apply these concepts in Agile.

Shu

Shu literally means to “obey”.  This is the first step in learning, and to be a good apprentice, you must obey the teacher and follow their example to master the knowledge passed on to you.  You observe. You perform. And you ultimately perfect what has been taught to you.  

Shu better describes the relationship between the instructor and the student.  The student is eager to learn and willing to accept correction and constructive criticism, while the instructor nurtures and encourages progress.  The student follows the teachings of one master precisely. They concentrate on how to do the task, without worrying too much about the underlying theory.   The focus is on one way to do things, even if there are multiple ways.  Following me so far?

Ha

Ha describes the process where the student reaches mastery but is frustrated and “breaks free” or branches out by applying principles and basic practices.  The student breaks free of the rigid instruction from the instructor and begins to question and discover more through personal experience.  This can be frustrating for the instructor, as many questions still arise during this phase.  I like to relate this to my all-knowing teenage daughter!  However, in this phase, the student can begin instructing others.  

Ri

Ri describes the process where the student separates from the instructor, thus learning everything possible and treasuring the wisdom imparted by the instructor.   At this point, the student is progressing through self-discovery versus instruction, and the instructor sets the student free.  Now, the student isn’t learning from others, but from their own practice.  They create their own approaches and adapt what has been learned to their own circumstances.

How can this possibly apply in Agile?  I once caught a fly mid-air in my hand…I’d say that’s pretty agile…or lucky.  It can absolutely be used in software development! 

Shu

• A team that has just adopted Scrum taken from the Scrum Guide

• Follows everything by the book, especially ceremonies

• All sprints are completed

Ha

• A team learns about different Agile practices such as Kanban, Work in Process, pair programming

• Focuses on inspect and adapt

Ri

• The team learns from their own experiments and forms their own practices

• Could drop a Scrum ceremony

• Could adjust sprint length

So how do we really know which step in Shu Ha Ri the team is at?  Here are some things to reflect on and ideas!

The Shu Level Reflection

• Has the team changed or dropped Agile practices and lost its intention?

• Possibly progressed to “Ha” too early

• Open to coaching at this level; being a good apprentice

• Strictly follow the rules of Agile, including following all ceremonies

• Team follows the 3-question rule in stand-up

• Once mastered, will see improvements made and the quality/duration of stand-ups will have improved

Shu Examples

• The Sprint is one month

• Planning is eight hours

• Sprint review is four hours

• Sprint retrospective takes three hours

• Daily scrum – answer the three questions

• An increment is finished at the end of the iteration

• …And many other practices directly copied from the Scrum Guide

The Ha Level Reflection

• Does the team live by the Agile Manifesto?  Following best practices?  Identifying new ways to improve?

• Open to coaching at this level; being a good apprentice

• Encouraged to make things better

• Continued experiments

• Comfortable with basic forms, ready to make tweaks

• Change timing of standups, review each story versus each team member, see what does/doesn’t work, follow retros religiously

• Add a 4th question to daily stand up:  I could use help with “x” today

• Increase of time in backlog refinement

• Continued experiments

• Start to adapt the teacher’s lessons to fit the team

• Add a 4th question to daily stand up:  I could use help with “x” today

• Can lead to fewer spillover stories

Ha Examples

• Limit Work in Process.

• An example can be that a team only works on one item at a time collectively

• Pair programming

• A team uses inspect and adapt from Scrum

• Could reduce the Iteration length to two weeks.

The Ri Level Reflection

• Is the team keeping the values and principles of Agile alive?  Better and faster delivery?

• Is the team self-monitoring and self-correcting?

• The team has moved from structure and rigid rules

• Stand up is a flow of information, no questions

Ri Examples

• Letting go of the fixed sprint length

• The team may decide they base the sprint length on the length of the items at hand

• Dropping a Scrum event

• The team may decide that the daily scrum no longer fits their needs due to the way they collaborate

• Have 1-day Sprints

• The team may decide to have all the Sprint events repeated every day

Some Examples Of Use In Agile

SHU	HA	RI
Customer focused	Satisfy focused	Delight customer
Welcome changes	Embrace changes	Seek changes
Deliver regularly	Deliver frequently	Deliver continuously
Measure output	Measure working software	Measure value delivered
Quality focused	Excel at quality	Excel at quality and get things done
Keep it simple	Less is more	Simplicity
Self-organizing team	Delegation board	Remove management
Team retrospective	Personal retrospective	Company retrospective

Want to learn more?  Here’s a great video to watch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxJP9vcldVc