Follow. Break. Transcend.

I was fortunate enough to attend UX Fest 2014 at Fresh Tilled Soil just outside of Boston.  It was an awesome event and helped me rethink how I've been doing product management.  C.Todd talked about 'Shu-Ha-Ri' during his talk on Making UX Top of Mind.  Shu-Ha-Ri is a term that comes from martial arts and is a way of thinking about learning new techniques and methodologies. Allistair Cockburn introduced it as a way of thinking about methodologies for software development.

There are three stages of learning or gaining knowledge.  C.Todd talked about how you can use this philosophy when thinking about introducing a new process for your product teams.  This was interesting to hear because there are many things I'd like to introduce to my product team, but change is often met with resistance.   Here's what the Japanese translations are:

Shu - learn the technique and fundamentals

Ha - Break from what you've learned and make it your own

Ri - No more rules, the process is just part of the culture

I'm planning to use this when introducing the idea of design sprints.  Initially, we just need to figure out what a design sprint is and emulate the process that has already been created by Google.  We'll take some time to make it our own, and eventually it will be part of the culture in our organization.  I'm curious to see what this will eventually shape out to be.

Have any of you tried this when it comes to new processes or ideas?  How has it worked?