---
aliases: ["Team Retreat Milan"]
Is A: Project
Belongs to: "[[25q2]]"
Advances: "[[responsibility-team-management]]"
Status: Done
Owner: "[[person-luca-rossi]]"
---
# Team Retreat Milan

## Overview

After more than a year of working together remotely, the Refactoring team gathered for its first in-person retreat in Milan. The retreat brought together [[person-luca-rossi]], [[person-matteo-cellini]], [[person-paco-furiani]], and [[person-sara-ricci]] for two days of strategy sessions, workshops, and team bonding. The purpose was to align on the business direction for the second half of 2025, address operational friction points, and build the personal relationships that make remote collaboration smoother.

The retreat was planned for early May, timed to fall between Season 3 podcast production and the summer growth push. The agenda was deliberately balanced between structured work sessions (morning) and unstructured social time (afternoon/evening). Milan was chosen for its central location relative to all team members.

## Goals

- Conduct a half-day business strategy session covering H2 2025 priorities and goals
- Run a workflow retrospective: identify and resolve the top 3 operational friction points
- Host a creative workshop on content format experimentation for H2
- Provide space for unstructured team bonding (dinner, activities)
- Document decisions and action items for follow-up within 1 week

## Key decisions

- **Two days, not three.** Considered a 3-day retreat but decided that two full days (plus a team dinner the evening before) provided enough time for meaningful work without pulling everyone away from their schedules for too long. Especially for a small team where everyone wears multiple hats, minimizing away-from-work time matters.
- **Strategy session first, social second.** Ran the strategy and retrospective sessions on the first day (when energy and focus are highest) and the creative workshop + social activities on the second day. This ensured the most important decisions got the best thinking.
- **External facilitator for the retrospective.** Rather than running the retrospective internally, brought in [[person-giulia-conti]] (who has experience facilitating team sessions) to moderate. Having an external voice made it easier for team members to surface honest feedback without the founder-employee dynamic filtering the conversation.

## Notes

- The retrospective produced the most actionable outcomes. The top 3 friction points identified were: (1) newsletter draft handoff timing (Sara needs more lead time), (2) sponsor pipeline visibility (Matteo wants to see content calendar earlier for pitch alignment), and (3) podcast scheduling conflicts (Paco needs more advance notice for guest confirmations). All three had clear action items assigned.
- The strategy session confirmed H2 priorities: community launch ([[25q3-community-launch]]), continued Laputa development ([[25q4-laputa-v3]]), and the push toward [[2025-reach-85k-subscribers]]. There was a genuine debate about whether to invest in a premium podcast (higher production value, video-first) versus the community. Decided on community as the higher-leverage bet.
- The creative workshop generated several content format ideas for H2, including a "Refactoring Case Studies" series (deep dives into real company engineering decisions) and a "Founder Metrics" segment sharing real revenue/growth numbers. Both were added to the content roadmap.
- Team dinner was at a classic Milanese trattoria near the Navigli. The informal conversation over dinner revealed a lot about individual motivations and career aspirations that would never surface in a video call. [[person-matteo-cellini]] mentioned wanting to eventually run his own content business, which was valuable context for thinking about his long-term role.
- Total cost: approximately 2,800 EUR (hotel, meals, workspace rental, facilitator). Very reasonable for the alignment value produced. Planning to make this a biannual event (spring and autumn).
