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NFJS2025

How to Run an Open Mastery Circle - Live Demo

“Open Mastery” is the discipline of learning out loud. In Open Mastery Circles, we put the pain on center stage, dig into the causes of pain as a group, then codify lessons learned into patterns and principles. With a simple 5-step problem-solving protocol that's easy to apply on your team, you can drastically increase the rate of learning.

Have you ever wondered whether your retrospective format was actually effective at fueling learning and improvement? Are you ready to try something different?

First, we'll identify the most common “pain type” experienced by the audience (from “The Ten Pains of Software Development” in Idea Flow), and choose the focus for the discussion. Then we'll dig into the details of one experience at a time, understand the causes of pain, and come up with strategies for improvement.

  1. Focus: Choose an experience with a specific unsolved #PainType
  2. Observe: Ask questions about the facts (maximize perspective)
  3. Conclude: What major factors caused the pain? (share ideas)
  4. Optimize: What strategies could we use to reduce the pain? (share ideas)
  5. Learn: Distill the lesson learned into #Patterns in the context of a “Journey”

Since this is much easier to do than to explain, there will be a short intro that explains the format, and why it works, then we'll spend the rest of the time in discussion.


Arty Starr

About Arty Starr

Arty Starr is a recognized Flow Experience expert, researcher, speaker and thought leader, and author of Idea Flow, how to measure the friction in software development. Arty's PhD research is developing a theory of momentum in software development, and she is creator of the FLOWS platform designed to help developers thrive and find joy through more time in the flow state. The company she founded, FlowInsight, is on a mission to bring back joy to our everyday work.

Arty is also a 2D/3D animator and artist, and has spent the last couple years building 3D apps in AR. She loves to share about her experiences with these technologies.

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