Learning in Agile Environments
Months ago, I attended a course on which the people responsible referred to Shu-Ha-Ri as "nonsense". "If there is an apprentice, where is the master? Who could be considered a master of our craft?" — one of them argued. That was a bit disappointing to me because I had read about it and the Shu-Ha-Ri concept really resonated in me as a simple model for learning and mastering new skills. If you do not know what Shu-Ha-Ri is, please keep reading.
3 While looking for more information, this is what I was able to find out: in his book Agile Software Development, Alistair Cockburn writes about three stages of behaviours people pass through when learning a new skill: following, detaching and fluent. In other words, to learn a new skill, people first copy what is being taught and celebrate when they are able to reproduce the idea or procedure accordingly. Second, he explains,
"people locate the limitations of single procedure and look for rules about when the procedure breaks down. (…) The person in the detaching stage learns to adapt the procedure to varying circumstances."(1)
Third, in the fluent stage, as he continues to describe, knowledge, thoughts and actions are integrated as one, eliminating the need for reproducing a procedure. You make your way as you go and choose the appropriate response based on the problem you face:
"A team leader who has led a number of projects in different areas doesn't care about "methodology" anymore (…) He simply observes and senses that more discipline is needed here, more freedom there, more communication in some other place." (2)
Shu-Ha-Ri comes from the japanese martial arts (such as Aikido) and it is also a three stage thinking pattern. It can be translated as learn, detach and transcend. It implies the presence of a teacher, not necessarily a master (and this is relevant to the first paragraph of this article), and the path of deepening your skill by first copying the core movements as taught by the instructor without adaptations or questions to the rationale behind the technical foundation. You are there to learn first, and this is the "Shu" stage. I find this concept particularly interesting, mostly because I have been working as a teacher for several years now. Time for a quick story:
"Once upon a time, a Zen master was approached by a student. The student introduced himself and said: "I have been studying the Zen theory for several yers now. Having reached a deep knowledge about the subject, I have started my search for people who could teach something I don't yet know. Could you please consider taking me as your apprentice?"
Before the master could answer the student then went on and on about his journey and what he had learned from previous masters. While he kept talking for minutes, the Zen master silently picked up a teacup, placed it in front of the student and started pouring tea until the teacup was overflowed and the liquid began to spill all over the table.
"Pay attention, master!" the student said "It is overflowing!". The Zen master them stopped, and said "I could not take you as my student. Like this teacup, your mind is already overflowing with no space left for new teachings. If you want to learn, please empty your cup first."
To me, this metaphor is about being humble enough to admit there is always something you can still learn from other people, but to do so, it is important the recognition of who is teaching and who is learning. Be mindful when you find a person that has THE right answer for every question asked. I personally like the analogy in which while at the "Shu" stage, it is necessary to acquire "muscle memory" on the practices taught. Finally, it is the instructor whom decides when the student is ready do move on to the "Ha" stage.
The "Ha" stage comes with the responsibility to reflect about the knowledge acquired and allows the person to break free from tradition and modify it to some extent. You got the foundation, the basics, the core. It is now time to think deeply about what you have learned and try to make sense of it. It also implies you have broaden your knowledge and your skills being now able to recognise patterns and identify possible solutions to obstacles you may encounter. You could also benefit from teaching or assisting others in their learning path due to your knowledge of the core related to the skills, practices and techniques. It is the beginning of the innovation process based on testing hypothesis through practices. By reaching the "Ri" stage, apprentice is now a practitioner and goes beyond the initial teachings, transcending then. The essence remains the same, but there is now room for creativity and innovation as a result of the experience acquired from the practice.
Martin Fowler also writes about Shu-Ha-Ri (3). I like his conclusion to tailor the style of teaching to the stage the student is in. Since we are talking about martial arts applied to Agile, I also enjoyed Mr. Fowler's taste for a Jazz approach to learning by directing you to Clark Terry's version of a three stage model: Imitate, Assimilate and Innovate. (4)
4If you don’t want to get stuck on just three staged models, in the Psychology field, Noel Burch (5), employee of Gordon Training International (6), developed a four stage model: Unconscious incompetence, Conscious incompetence, Conscious competence, Unconscious competence.
5Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus (7) have proposed the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition explaining how students are able to acquire skills through formal instruction and practice. Dreyfus model is composed on five stages and Michael Eraut summarised the increasing skill as follows (excerpt from Wikipedia):
1. Novice: “rigid adherence to taught rules or plans” | no exercise of “discretionary judgment”
2. Advanced beginner: limited “situational perception”| all aspects of work treated separately with equal importance
3. Competent: “coping with crowdedness” (multiple activities, accumulation of information) | some perception of actions in relation to goals | deliberate planning | formulates routines
4. Proficient: holistic view of situation | prioritises importance of aspects | “perceives deviations from the normal pattern” | employs maxims for guidance, with meanings that adapt to the situation at hand
5. Expert: transcends reliance on rules, guidelines, and maxims | “intuitive grasp of situations based on deep, tacit understanding” | has “vision of what is possible” | uses “analytical approaches” in new situations or in case of problems
6The game World of Warcraft has professions a character can choose from and as you advance in each profession, the levels of skill are: Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, Artisan, Master, Grand Master and other two or three stages with game context that are not relevant in this context. In this example, I call your attention to the domain: professions.
7 If you are like me, and enjoy Star Wars, the Jedi Ranks are Initiate (Youngling), Padawan, Knight, Master, Councilor, Master of the Order, Gran Master. Here the skill is mastery of the force ;)
10 I also found out on Wikipedia (8) that The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in its “Proficiency Guidelines” uses a ten stage model in order to assess the proficiency of a foreign language speaker: “novice”, “intermediate”, “advanced”, and “superior”, of which the first three are each subdivided into “low”, “mid”, and “high”.
My point is: it is everywhere and it varies in complexity and number of stages depending on domain. However, all of them follow a similar logic that could be summarised in three main stages:
- An apprentice stage: someone will teach you the basic rules. It is your job to learn the rules and practice them until you are able to actually do whatever the new skill entails. Your coach will help you with that.
- A journeyman stage: you have developed the competence and can use the skill accordingly. You begin to wonder why it works and search for answers based on your practice experience.
- A master stage: you have mastered the new skill. What once seemed incredibly difficult is now easy and intuitive for you. You are able to recognise patterns and make good decisions on how to use a method or when to mix practices and techniques.
It seems fair to me that learning the rules gives you freedom to conduct experiments that could make improvements on current status quo: aka innovate. First you follow, then you get creative; otherwise you did not really try to learn the skill as it is. To ease the learning curve, however, you probably need a coach or a mentor and a psychologically safe environment to PRACTICE and learn from your own mistakes. The emphasis on practice here is due to my perception of an increasingly tendency to discard methods and practices because they are "old" or "hard to implement". "Yep, we've tried that, but it didn't work. So here, we removed (any difficult) parts of model and came up with a much simpler and lean solution." If this sentence is heard at the beginning of the learning curve, there is probably something missing.
So back to the first paragraph, who could be considered master of our craft to act as a coach or mentor to other people? Considering the course was a MASTERCLASS, the answer, at that point was obvious. It was probably a rhetorical question. To me, however, it is not about job titles or certifications, but about finding someone from whom you could learn and that could help you up your game to the next level of understanding and development of the skill or competence: a coach, a mentor, a teacher. That could be someone in your company, a friend, an agile coach, and it does not have to be the top plus optimum mega diamond max prime deluxe expert in the field. Nonsense to me would be ignoring a good simple metaphor and framework that is useful for finding out where you are and what are the next steps, and, as Martin Fowler says, could be tailored to help you achieve the next level of competency in you desired skill.
While learning a new skill or competence, guidance & humbleness, practice & experiments, walk in pairs and should result in creativity & innovation.
From what I've seen so far, I would stick to a three staged model, but I am open to try sophisticated ones depending on the challenge.
How about you? Do you prefer sophisticated or simpler models? Do you think it is important to understand the stage you are in? Any stories from the trenches about this? Let me know!
(1) COCKBURN, Alistair. Agile Software Development. Addison-Wesley. p.17–18.
(2) COCKBURN, Alistair. Agile Software Development. Addison-Wesley. p.15.(3) https://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/ShuHaRi.html
(4) https://www.jazzadvice.com/clark-terrys-3-steps-to-learning-improvisation/
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence
(6) http://www.gordontraining.com/free-workplace-articles/learning-a-new-skill-is-easier-said-than-done/#
(7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_model_of_skill_acquisition
(8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_proficiency
