What is Shu Ha Ri in Agile/Scrum ??

Sometime back a colleague had shared a post online on the concept and also an interesting scale to measure self as Scrum Master & Agile Coach in #Agile #Scrum methodology.

This piqued my interest in what is exactly “#Shu #Ha #Ri” in Scrum/Agile context and got me thinking how it will help the Scrum Masters??

So some quick facts & info about it which I found during my research on this subject:-

1. The concept of Shu Ha Ri comes from the Japanese martial art of Aikido
2. Alistair Cockburn introduced it as a way of thinking about learning techniques and methodologies for software development.
3. Shu-Ha-Ri is a way of thinking about how you learn a technique.
4. The Shu Har Ri concept can be used to consider what qualities make a great ScrumMaster? And what does a ScrumMaster do in each state?
5. The idea is that a person passes through three stages of gaining knowledge:
   1. Shu: In this beginning stage the student follows the teachings of one master precisely. He concentrates on how to do the task, without worrying too much about the underlying theory. If there are multiple variations on how to do the task, he concentrates on just the one way his master teaches him.
   2. Ha: At this point, the student begins to branch out. With the basic practices working he now starts to learn the underlying principles and theory behind the technique. He also starts learning from other masters and integrates that learning into his practice.
   3. Ri: Now the student isn’t learning from other people but from his own practice. He creates his own approaches and adapts what he’s learned to his own particular circumstances.
6. Now, this idea in Scrum methodology can be taken up as follows:
   1. In the Shu state, the ScrumMaster sets up the process, helps the team get to a sustainable pace with known velocity and uses the Retrospective to introduce a change that improves velocity.
   2. In the Ha state, the ScrumMaster has a team that gets software done (all features tested and no bugs) at the end of the sprint and has a good product owner with ready backlog at the beginning of a sprint, has data that clearly show at least a doubling of productivity, and has strong management support. The team is positioned to work on hyperproductivity, the design goal of Scrum.
   3. In the Ri state, the team is hyperproductive. But what is the ScrumMaster doing and do you really need one? You need the ScrumMaster but they don’t have to do much essentially.
7. It essentially help you on how to make a Scrum Team so self-organized that it can function WITHOUT a Scrum Master also (Yes, quite a radical idea!! J )

Reference Links and More info:-

1. http://www.scruminc.com/shu-ha-ri-what-makes-great-scrummaster-2/ – Jeff Sutherland
2. http://martinfowler.com/bliki/ShuHaRi.html – Martin Fowler
3. http://alistair.cockburn.us/Shu+Ha+Ri – Alistair Cockburn
4. https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2014/july/scrum-without-a-scrummaster