Beginning an Agile Transformation at Your Organization: Shu-Ha-Ri?

Yes! Just like in The Karate Kid … “Wax on. Wax off. Wax on. Wax off.” Also, this is discussed in great detail in Chapter 4 of Lyssa Adkins book “Coaching Agile Teams” which I highly recommend.

agilefellow

I just attended the Agile Open Florida event in St. Petersburg Florida this past Friday and the attendees’ organizations there seemed to be split into three camps:

  • Some teams within an organization practicing Agile and the other teams practicing Waterfall.
  • Organization just announced or beginning transformation to Agile (2-6 months into it).
  • Organizations been practicing Agile for a year or more (at different levels of maturity).

My perception was that the majority of the attendees’ organizations fell into Group 2 and I would like to expose them and others interested to the teachings of Shu-Ha-Ri and the question of its adoption.

Shu-Ha-Ri is a Japanese martial art concept where the term translates roughly to “first learn, then detach and finally transcend”.  The definition pulled from Wikipedia follows:

It is known that, when we learn or train in something, we pass through the stages of shu, ha, and ri. These…

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About Stephanie Davis

Stephanie is now VP of Product Excellence at LeadingAgile focused on the growth, development, and delivery of some amazing agile products.  Recently, she spent the past two years as Executive Director - Enterprise Agility Office at Catalina leading another top-to-bottom, inside-out agile transformation.  Prior to that, Stephanie was Senior Director of Enterprise Agility at Valpak. She was with Valpak for 13 years, most of which were focused on leading their agile transformation to what became a world renowned success story published in case studies and demonstrated to over 50 different companies through the years via agile tours.  Prior to Valpak, Stephanie held past positions in the project management domain with AT&T and IBM. Stephanie's academic credentials include a BS in Marketing from the University of South Florida and an MBA in International Business from the University of Bristol in England. She also maintains the Project Management Professional (PMP), Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP), and Certified Scrum Master (CSM) credentials. Stephanie is big on tech community involvement!  Most recently, she served as an elected board member to the Agile Alliance, a non-profit organization with global membership, committed to advancing agile development values, principles, and practices. In addition, she serves her local community as an organizer for Tampa Bay Agile, the largest and most active tech Meetup in the area, and the annual Agile Open Florida event. In 2016, Stephanie was awarded Tampa Bay Tech’s Technology Leader of the Year and the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s BusinessWoman of the Year (Tech) and Emerging Technology Leader of the Year. View all posts by Stephanie Davis

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