The beginning of a year often comes with pressure to add something new.
A new goal.
A new process.
A new initiative.
The reset of the calendar year can often correspond with the fiscal year for many businesses. This means a fresh start to many projects, KPIs, and the like. But sometimes the most meaningful way to start fresh isn’t always by committing to more. It’s by taking a careful look at what we’re already carrying.
Product teams accumulate habits the same way products accumulate features: gradually, often with good intent, and rarely with a clear moment of reevaluation. Meetings get added. Rituals repeat. Dashboards refresh. Decisions follow familiar paths. Over time, some of this work stops earning its keep, not because it’s wrong, but because the team has changed.
It might be a meeting that persists even though decisions now happen elsewhere.
A roadmap ritual that exists independently of strategy.
A metric that’s tracked faithfully but never referenced when choices are made.
A handoff or approval step that once mitigated risk, but now simply slows flow.
These aren’t failures. They’re signs of growth. Teams evolve faster than their systems, and that’s normal. What matters is whether we pause long enough to notice.
This year, thinking about peeling something back. Not as a resolution. Not as a critique. But as a moment of care for how the work actually happens.
Healthy teams don’t just build products thoughtfully; they tend their systems. They revisit how decisions are made, how time is spent, and which rituals still serve the work in front of them.
When teams don’t periodically reassess these defaults, they can create operational drag. The work gets heavier without becoming clearer. The calendar fills up without improving outcomes. And the team’s energy gets spread thinner than it needs to be. This idea shows up again and again in the work of Melissa Perri: outdated or inconsistent processes often slow teams more than a lack of tools or talent. The cost isn’t just inefficiency; it’s decision fatigue, misalignment, and lost momentum.
Starting the year by removing something unnecessary is a way of restoring intention.
STAND-UP EXERCISE
In your next stand-up create a whiteboard for people to share at least one recurring ritual, meeting, report, or decision pattern they participate in regularly. Talk through key points of that item:
What decision does this help us make?
Who uses the output?
What would realistically happen if we paused this for a month (or 3 months)?
Listen for overlap, hesitation, the things no one quite knows how to justify anymore. You’re not looking to eliminate everything. You’re looking for one candidate — something that may have outlived its usefulness.
Then, remove one ritual. Don’t immediately replace it with something else. Let the absence do some work. This isn’t about optimization; it is about care and attention to the team’s energy and clarity. After a month, or a time interval that makes sense for the specific ritual, look back and assess. Did removing this create space for better work?
