👋 Hi, I’m Jos.
For over 20 years I’ve worked with teams that build smart, beautiful things, and sometimes just struggle with the process.
In this newsletter, I share what I’ve learned: how to keep complex problems small, and make improvement manageable.
Each week: one theme, one tiny improvement you can use right away, and one book to go deeper.
Table of Contents
In a few weeks, 2026 begins.
Soon you'll be back in the thick of it, continuing what you were already doing.
Soon the first sprint is running again.
Soon everyone is "busy". But with what, exactly?
Do you and your team know where you're headed?
What's your goal for 1 year from now? Or 3 years from now? Or even 5 years?
And what will you do this year to get there?
If you don’t have clear answers to those questions, you’re not really steering. You’re drifting.
The solution is simple: plan a year-start moment. A deliberate pause with your team to reflect, reset, and choose direction for the coming year or years.
My first year-start moment was a mess
In December 2021, I organized my first year-start moment. A whole week. Of course I wanted to do it right. Get the team together, revisit the vision, set goals and start the year with focus.
It got pretty chaotic. Sessions ran over or had no outcome. Some sessions were too vague. In the end, I made assumptions and the desired outcome wasn’t even close to what I was prepared for. But then the feedback came in…
👉 "This was good."
👉 "We needed this."
👉 "Can we do this more often?"
You know why? We looked ahead together. And we got vision and goals as a team,
even if they were far from my own expectations.
The year after, other teams in the company followed our example.
Why this works (even if your team is already good)
You can have the best team in the world. Highly reflective, sharp and self-organizing.
And yet, without a moment of team reflection, you lose the big picture. You know what you're working on, but not why anymore. You run and keep on running, but forget where the finish line is.
A year-start moment can be data maintenance for your team's focus. And it doesn't have to be a week like my first time in 2021. It can be a few sessions in one sprint. Spread the workshops across that time.
And what you do depends on where you stand.
Examples of sessions I use
📌 Biggest product frustrations
What frustrates the team most? Vote on it. The top 3 go straight onto the roadmap.
🔄 Big retro of the year
What went well? What didn't? Why? What do we take forward?
🗺 Event storming session on customer journey
Lay out the entire flow. Where are the gaps? Where is confusion?
💪 Ownership workshop
If the team struggles with mandate or responsibility, address it.
🎯 Revisit the vision
Where do we stand now? Where do we want to be in 1, 3, and 5 years?
Each year can be different, but the ritual stays the same: stop, look, determine direction.
The resistance you'll get (and how to overcome it)
You can get and probably will get some resistance, but it’s easy to overcome:
"We don't have time."
👉 Bullshit. You don't have time to stop for a day, but you do have time to work in the wrong direction for three months?
"Waste of money and resources."
Investing 4 or 5 half-days in direction saves weeks of wasted effort.
"We already know where we're going, don't we?"
👉 Does your team know that too? Really? Or do you think that, because you know it?
My experience: resistance is beforehand. Once you start, everyone participates.
Even at NS, where I spread these sessions across PI days each quarter, 50% of the team thought in December: “Why do I have to travel to the main office for 2.5 hours for something we can do right here?”
After the first session, the feedback was positive. And after 2 PIs with good sessions, there was a different trend: People wanted to be there and even looked forward to it.
Here's my message
If you don’t want direction to be determined only by management, you participate.
If you want your team to take ownership, give them space to help shape the course.
And if you think your team is already sharp enough, ask them.
You might be surprised.
Hard to start? Begin with the 1% improvement
You don't have to plan a whole week.
You don't have to free up budget.
You definitely don't need to book a fancy location.
Do this:
✅ Put this to your team.
✅ Make a poll: What do we want to tackle in 2026?
✅ Schedule one half-day in January.
✅ Choose one topic: frustrations, a retro of 2025, or a vision for 2027.
✅ Have the conversation.
That's already a 1% improvement. Because you're not just going into 2026.
You're going to start 2026 sharp.
Book of the week
Turn The Ship Around – David Marquet
I just received this book as a farewell gift at NS. And it fits perfectly with this newsletter.
Marquet describes how he transformed his submarine by not telling his team what to do, but by sharing his intent.
No orders. No top-down planning.
But thinking together about direction.
Exactly what a year-start moment is: bringing your team along to where you're going. Not because you have to, but because the team gets better when they understand why they're doing what they're doing.
If you read one book this year about leadership, read this one.
Question for you
What would your team choose if you asked them today: "What should we tackle in 2026?" Think about it. Or better: ask them.
✌️ Jos