---
aliases: ["2025 Annual Review"]
Is A: Project
Belongs to: "[[25q4]]"
Advances: "[[responsibility-team-management]]"
Status: Open
Owner: "[[person-luca-rossi]]"
---
# 2025 Annual Review

## Overview

This is the full 2025 retrospective — a comprehensive review covering both the team (structured reviews for each team member) and a personal year-in-review across all areas of responsibility. The process builds on the framework established in [[24q4-annual-review-process]], which proved effective and is now in its second iteration. The review covers business performance, content output, team development, personal health and fitness, and financial outcomes.

The review is scheduled for December 2025 and will be conducted in two phases: individual team member reviews (week 1-2 of December), followed by the personal retrospective and 2026 planning (week 3-4 of December). The outputs will inform Q1 2026 planning, team role adjustments, compensation reviews, and personal goal-setting for the new year.

## Goals

- Conduct structured annual reviews with [[person-matteo-cellini]], [[person-paco-furiani]], and [[person-sara-ricci]]
- Evaluate each team member against 2025 goals set during the 2024 review
- Conduct a personal retrospective across all responsibilities: content, sponsorships, podcast, fitness, finance, and Laputa development
- Set 2026 goals for the business, team, and personal areas
- Identify 3-5 strategic priorities for 2026 based on 2025 learnings

## Key decisions

- **Same review format as 2024, with one addition.** The conversation-first, self-assessment-supported format from [[24q4-annual-review-process]] worked well and will be reused. The addition for 2025: a peer feedback component where team members provide brief feedback on each other (not just on [[person-luca-rossi]]). This gives a more complete picture as the team grows.
- **Personal retrospective tied to vault data.** Using data from the vault (goals achieved, projects completed, measures tracked) as the foundation for the personal retrospective rather than relying on memory. This is one of the use cases where Laputa ([[25q4-laputa-v3]]) and the structured vault pay off — the data is all there, organized by quarter and responsibility.
- **2026 planning as part of the review, not a separate process.** Rather than separating the retrospective from forward planning, combining them ensures that 2026 goals are directly informed by 2025 learnings. The risk of separating them is that planning happens in a vacuum, disconnected from recent experience.

## Notes

- The team has grown from 3 part-time contractors in 2024 to 4 people with expanded roles. [[person-matteo-cellini]]'s role expansion (from outreach to full sales cycle, as discussed in the 2024 review) has been successful. His 2025 review should formalize this expanded scope.
- [[person-sara-ricci]]'s feedback from the 2024 review about draft lead time was acted upon and has improved the editorial workflow. Will assess whether the 48-hour minimum lead time for [[procedure-weekly-newsletter]] is sufficient or if further adjustment is needed.
- [[person-paco-furiani]]'s new community moderation responsibilities (from [[25q3-community-launch]]) were not part of his original scope. The review should address whether this is a permanent addition, requires compensation adjustment, and how it fits with his other operational duties.
- The personal retrospective will draw on goal outcomes ([[2025-reach-85k-subscribers]], [[2025-reach-22k-mrr]], [[2025-ship-laputa]], [[2025-ride-stelvio]], [[2025-read-20-books]]) as quantitative inputs, supplemented by qualitative reflection on what felt sustainable, what caused stress, and where energy was best spent.
- Key question for 2026 planning: is the current business model (newsletter + podcast + sponsorships) approaching its ceiling, or is there still significant headroom? The community experiment ([[25q3-community-launch]]) and the e-book ([[25q3-ebook]]) suggest there are adjacent revenue and engagement opportunities worth exploring.
- Scheduling note: the review takes approximately 8-10 hours total (preparation, 4 conversations, personal retrospective, documentation). Blocking this time in December is essential — the review gets squeezed out if it has to compete with end-of-year operational demands.
