#learning circle

-Christine Mason-Miller

So 2012 is upon us. 2011 was good for me, but I'm hard on myself... looking back, I probably accomplished more than I think. My tendency is to look at what I've done, and think first about what more I could have done, or how much better I could have done it. I am critical; not so much of others or other things, but really toward myself and my goals, projects, jobs or whatever. As I reflect on the things I got done last year, I'm starting to think it really doesn't matter what I accomplished last year; what matters is what I'm going to do this year.

This year I'm not setting any goals or resolutions because at the end of the year I'm going to look back again and feel like I could have done more. This year I'm going to look forward and make a deliberate effort to simply keep doing what I do, every day, to the best of my ability... and I'm going to be happy with that. I have so many projects and collaborations on the go... more than enough to keep me busy, and I may find more, but that's OK because I'm going to look at all of them in the same way. I'm going to be less focused on achieving the goal, and so much more focused on enjoying the goal.

This year, instead of looking at progress as a means to successful ends, I'm framing it as a process to extend, refine and strengthen learning. I'm going to view progress as a fractal representation of different sorts of knowledge and skill attainment. There is always room to improve. I'm going to accept (embrace, really) that I will always be learning, and that there will always be something to learn.

The Learning Circle is one of three foundations of OpenAgile - the others being "Truthfulness" and "Consultative Decision-Making". A diagram of the Learning Circle is therefore a very important artifact of the OpenAgile system and so far I've observed the following revisions of the diagram.

1st Edition of the Learning Circle's Diagram (that I know of...)

I was introduced to the Learning Circle by Garry Berteig in November 2007. He spoke about it at a ScrumMaster training seminar hosted by Berteig Consulting with his son, Mishkin Berteig. While riffing on the subject, Garry inked a messy diagram onto a whiteboard in our small conference room. I didn't know, at that time, how important to me that diagram would eventually become.

1st Revision of the Learning Circle's Diagram

The first "official"-looking diagram I remember seeing was on Garry's office door - he pinned it there, I believe, to demonstrate it to his colleagues. That diagram became widely known by early adopters of OpenAgile and it appeared at www.openagile.org and in the first editions of the OpenAgile Primer.

This edition is still powerful and I suspect the community will continue to use it with comfort and almost as frequently as newer editions. It's the simplest form of the diagram - uncompromised by any desire to be comprehensive. The problem, however, is that it's not quite complete and doesn't consider the deep implications of the learning process and team relationships that newer revisions of the diagrams attempt to capture.

2nd Revision of the Learning Circle's Diagram

The second diagram that I remember appeared again on Garry's door and online in this interview with Garry. There are some interesting differences to note:

The arrows around the perimeter of the first revision, directing us clearly in clockwise motion, became circles. Maybe our journey through the learning circle isn't always in the same direction?

Lines were drawn to clearly divide the circle into quadrants. This design element will not stay long in the diagram but I find it interesting that Garry made that choice.

There's a small circle in the center behind the word "Guidance".

You'll note the outer ring of this edition has an irregular shape, thicker by the Action and Learning phases. I believe Garry did this intentionally to represent the notion that those phases require more effort/time/investment/attention, etc.

3rd Revision of the Learning Circle's Diagram

I remember seeing a third revision of the diagram in Garry's painting studio. He gave me a copy and I've had it posted in my office ever since. I'm sorry that I don't have a digital version of this revision but I'll get one soon and add it to this article.

The third diagram I recall looked similar to version #2 but:

Garry added a second outer ring which was thicker by the Reflection and Planning phases. This new ring complemented the other and, I believe, was the first time that the Learning Circle's diagram reflected the reality that there are really two streams of learning to consider in the OpenAgile system: individual growth and team development.

Each of the rings, being thicker at specific points, represented the notion that the team is most influential in the Reflection and Planning phases, while the individual is most influential during the Learning and Action phases.

The words "Individual" and "Team" appeared on the diagram for the first time -- apparently as labels for the two outer rings.

4th Revision of the Learning Circle's Diagram

Again, I don't have a digital copy to display here to demonstrate the 4th revision of the diagram -- in part because this edition was very short-lived and led quickly to the next. What I can say, however, is that there was most certainly a unique version of the Learning Circle on Garry's office door for the past month or so and when I wrote to him to acquire a copy of it, he sent me, not the edition that I expected, but a newer version depicted below

5th Revision of the Learning Circle's Diagram

This is the most recent of Garry's diagrams that I'm aware of. There are a few really interesting changes in this edition:

The word "Love" has changed to "Love of the Work". This change actually took place in the 4th edition (above) for which I don't have a digital copy. This simple change really helps to clarify, I suppose, the reason that an individual moves into the Planning phase -- because they love what they're doing and want to proceed.

The words "Individual" and "Team" appear in both the Action and Learning phases. "Individual", the word, is contained within the inner circle and I suppose it's clear, by this diagram, that detachment, search, love of the work, and courage are within the domain of the individual -- those traits really are unique to each individual.

"Guidance" now appears to be a label within the inner circle: nicely signifying that the individual always has access to guidance but that guidance is not just omnipresent -- we have choose it, we have to go to a different place (within us) to accept guidance.

6th Revision of the Learning Circle's Diagram

Josh W has just notified me of his own new revision to the Learning Circle. He designed this diagram as a presentation online and it includes new descriptions and new elements to consider. I believe Josh W prepared this new presentation based on previous editions of the Learning Circle's diagram (prior to the 4th revision discussed above) because his edition includes the word "Love" and not "Love of the Work". However, remarkably, under the label of "Love", Josh W included this descriptive phrase: "for the act of Learning".

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