3 Steps to Start 2025 Strong: Reflect, Plan, Adjust

Is it 2025 already? You may have spent the last couple of months tying up 2024 and making perfect plans for 2025. Then again, maybe not.

I’ve worked at Fortune 500 companies that took months to plan their next year. Did those plans stick? Of course not. We would start the year in a perfect symphony of tactics aligned to strategy from the CEO’s office down to the front line managers. As time passed recommendations of “Tiger Teams,” market shifts and project learning would result in justifiable shifts in tactics (and sometimes strategy).

I’ve also worked at startups where it felt like strategy shifted weekly. Startups naturally tend to be reactive in response to ever evolving insights — say a large customer comes in with product demands or a strategy fails to bring in revenue. Pivoting is good but the cascading effect on marketing, operations and finance sends those teams into a stress ball of spin.

So where’s the middle ground for front line teams executing a shifting strategy? How do you start out 2025 with a clear yet flexible operating plan? I do it by putting my program management skills to work.

I look back and learn from past projects (whether they were completed or not); create a living, prioritized plan; and schedule a reasonable rhythm of review to ensure our tactics are aligned with current strategy and organization resources. I do this in a cycle of REFLECT-PLAN-(DO)-ADJUST.

REFLECT: Learn from Past Projects

When reflecting on key past projects, choose a time horizon appropriate for your team. An IT infrastructure team may need to look at the year in review. SEO marketing or AI development teams may choose three months or less.

I often host a retrospective with the core people that contributed to the projects. I prefer live retrospectives to gather feedback, but if you have a global team, using a shared document for asynchronous feedback works. I typically ask three questions in my retrospectives:

1. Which projects were killed and WHY?

Were they mis-aligned with the strategy? Did the strategy change? Did resources shift (which would imply misalignment with strategy by the way)?

2. What went well and WHY?

Maybe you had excellent communication or had smooth work handoffs. Maybe you had laser focus on the deliverables or executive sponsorship. Dig into why you had those successes so you can replicate them.

3. What would you do differently and WHY?

This isn’t a time for finger-pointing. Be systematic in your analysis. If a particular person didn’t come through on their deliverables, ask them what blocked them. Did they or their manager prioritize other work above your needs… and why? Have a learning mindset as you inquire.

PLAN: Make a Living, Prioritized Plan

I like to create a living work plan that reflects projects that are aligned with business strategy and the priorities to improve that we identified in the retrospective. If you do this, avoid the pitfalls of over-planning (we see you large companies) or under-planning (umm… startups). Test that your priorities are tied to specific goals and measurable outcomes wherever possible.

Here’s a simple framework I use to review and prioritize resource allocation and projects. Clients often customize the columns but I always encourage them to keep it simple. You want readers to be able to scan and understand.

Download a copy of the CWTC Project Prioritization Template

The key is to relate your team projects to your organization’s strategic initiatives. If a project isn’t aligned to priorities don’t consider it. I used High/Medium/Low for ranking the project priorities. I’ve also used numerical scales or if you’re brave, stack ranking. I like to include an estimate of effort, cost, and dependencies up front to minimize surprises. This is a practice you will often see on technology teams and is a good one to model.

An extra word on dependencies — I always include notes on teams I depend on for major initiatives. That’s my flag to make sure they’re priorities are aligned with mine. If someone (or their manager) doesn’t know you need them for your project, they may not be available. Put the effort into thinking about dependencies!

ADJUST: Review, Learn & Adjust

Your prioritization plan is a living document! Think of it like your shopping list that changes from week to week. You’re just adjusting it less frequently. We all know that our priorities will shift as we learn (hopefully not week to week).

I like to proactively create an operating mechanism to review priorities on a consistent basis. These are not in-depth project reviews, but Priority Reviews. We gather the right people and who can decide whether to add, subtract, or re-prioritize projects. Then we communicate those decisions.

What about frequency? The time horizon of most of the projects and your org culture inform how often you review. Marketing teams may meet more frequently as they learn from customers and the market. Agile style engineering teams also scrub their list frequently. Some teams do this quarterly. Others may do it monthly. If you’re scrubbing on a weekly basis then you are likely a click down from strategic projects.

You’ll be well-positioned to start 2025 strong and achieve your goals by creating a prioritization framework of projects that you maintain, review, and adjust throughout the year. The key is to be intentional, flexible, and open to learning and adapting along the way.