2025: A Year Review

2025 - you’re basically done. A year shaped by one project. In some ways a year very similar to the last but in some smaller ways so very different. A year of growth, maybe, a year of reflection certainly.

Project-R

I spent most of my year focused on this one project for one new customer. It shaped everything. New service descriptions were written, new portal features developed and new documentation authored. I was so deep into ITIL and it’s edge cases with this customer that there were times when I almost forgot who I worked for. It was the exciting springboard upon which the business grew and I with it. I have worked on projects of this size before but this one was different, this one was about service design and experience as much as it was about migration and onboarding. There will be others in the future like this but this was the first and set the foundations of what is to come.

Dubai

In May, I went to the Dubai FinTech summit. My first time in Dubai and it was a massive education in the culture, in how tech is used and perceived as well as how it really feels like anything in possible there. Sometimes it’s difficult to ignore the darker side of things but most of the time it was just dinners, great conversation and endless possibilities. I met some people with great wealth whom I could never think to have the opportunity to meet again and had some very surreal experiences. Nothing much really came from the trip this year, but it was a valuable education of doing business in the region and I am sure the experience will come in useful in the future.

Portfolio Radar

Another thing I am relatively proud of this year was developing a single-view of Claranet’s portfolio called the “Portfolio Radar” based upon the Thoughtworks radar. Portfolio has previously been pretty disjointed and there was no single source of truth for the entire catalogue. There was also a no shared roadmap and nothing that could be easily shared with customers. The first edition of this radar was a pretty big undertaking but it now exists as a framework to build and grow from. It’s triggering a lot of really great conversations - which was part of the point.

Acknowledging the unachievements

One of the reasons that I continue to write weeknotes is that it allows me to reflect back on what I achieved and consequently what I did not. I worked hard this year, I spend a lot of time producing content and running workshops but it meant that I did not have a lot of time or energy left for other activities. Less writing on here and more TV show binges is a sign of hard work followed by goblin mode. I also look at some of the patterns and repetition in my week notes and note that my ideas and projects always take a lot longer to complete that I expect. There are things started this year that might take a year or more to really deliver. There are lots of these things that I hoped would be done this year but weren’t but I am acknowledging and giving myself some grace that they were started and are still progressing. I write this here because I think it’s important in year-end reviews to acknowledge what was not achieved but also not to beat yourself up about it.

New role again.

As the year ends, I find myself in yet a new role, Director of the Cloud Practice (again - but bigger this time!) only 1 year after my previous change. I still keep many of my portfolio-based responsibilities but now I have the budget and responsibility for supporting the entire cloud team. It’s taking me a few weeks to get around my new team but I have certainly learnt a few lessons from last time and unlike that previous occasion that I had the director role, I think I’m going to enjoy it a bit more. I think it’s a positive milestone to acknowledge and I am really looking forward to getting stuck into it properly in the new year.

Walking Update

Last year I was focused on increasing my levels of activity though walking on my treadmill. Well two electric treadmills later, I now have a more expensive manual treadmill but I’ve also spent the last month not being able to use it as much. It’s a bit more difficult but it’s still a routine that I managed to mostly keep going throughout the year - so I’m pretty pleased with that. Expanding on in the new year for sure.

Reflections on 2025 goals

In 2024 I wrote a post of my goals of 2025 which contained 3 key elements:

• Consume Less. Create More - I didn’t really achieve everything I wanted to here and certainly consumed a lot more TV (or maybe got better at recording it). I managed to keep up the weeknotes but I blogged about the same as the previous year, I didn’t really post at all on social media and I still don’t really have a creative hobby to speak about. I did write a lot this year, more than I ever have, it’s just content for work that no one else will ever see publicly. As I draft my goals for next year I think it has to be focused on writing more here, not because I think I have particularly unique or interesting things to say but because weeknotes has proved to me that I do enjoy the act of writing and that I can, with the right format do it regularly.

• Connect More - I did do this, well at least in a work context anyway. I’ve been better relationships across the business, have mentored a couple of people and really enjoyed doing it. I’ve learnt that I actually enjoy the process of coaching and using a combination of frameworks, conversation and experience to help people in their careers. I can understand more now why people go and do this full time, it can be quite rewarding. For me it’s still just an internal side hustle but I enjoy it none the less.

• Improve Fitness - I did actually do some of this although it took me a bit longer to get going than I was expecting. From midway through the year I did add an additional exercise routine on the end of my morning walking. It’s nothing to write home about, and I don’t think I’ve made any significant gains just yet but the routine is there and I don’t hate it - so that’s a start.

• Be consistent - I was certainly pretty consistent this year with my habits and did track them. I didn’t write them down as much as I should but my self-care, fitness and writing routines all remained pretty solid for most of the year so I’m pleased with that. Next step I think is to amend next years weeknotes to align with goals.

The stats

This years wrapped:

• 52 weeknotes ↔️
• 6 blog posts ⬇️
• 18 days and 23 hours listening to podcasts ⬇️
• 3 books ⬇️
• 93 TV shows ⬆️
• 15 Films ⬆️

What’s next?

Well last year I had goals to read more, write more and improve my fitness. What I’ve learnt is that I set ambitious goals and don’t achieve all for them, but also have the consistency not to ignore them and bin them all off by February either. I’m pretty bad at predictions so I will save any expectations of goal setting to the next post but I think next year I will try and set less goals and try and spread my wins across the year.