Monthly Retrospective: January 2026

Monthly Retrospective: January 2026

I have reached the end of the first month of 2026.

In Agile software development, I hold a ceremony called a Retrospective (or "Retro") at the end of every sprint (work cycle). It is a sacred time to stop coding, look at the process, and be honest about what happened.

I ask three simple but powerful questions:

• What went well?
• What went wrong?
• What will I do differently next month?

The Wins (What Went Well)

• Consistency: I published content every single day for 31 days. This "streak" builds discipline. It proves that I can ship value consistently, not just in bursts.
• Traffic & Engagement: The technical deep dives on "Open Banking" and "Agentic AI" drove significant traffic. This validates a core hypothesis: there is a hunger for deep, technical content that respects the reader's intelligence but explains things simply.
• Tech Stack Performance: The move to Next.js (discussed Jan 2) has resulted in a 40% speed increase in page load times compared to the old version. The "Mobile First" optimization is paying off.

The Lessons (What Went Wrong)

• Scope Creep: I tried to build too many features into the new Dashboard at once. I wanted the "Invoicing Agent" AND the "Project Tracker" to launch simultaneously. This led to a bottleneck.
• Balance: The "Soft Shutdown" in December was necessary because January was intense. Maintaining this daily publishing pace alongside client work requires strict adherence to "Deep Work" schedules (as discussed Jan 4).

The Adjustment (What I Will Do Differently)

Next month, I will focus on Iterative Design. Instead of holding back a feature until it is perfect, I will ship the "Minimum Viable Product" (MVP) version sooner to get feedback.

February will be focused on "Integration." I have the blog, I have the dashboard, I have the agents. Now, I need to make them talk to each other seamlessly to create that "Orchestration" layer I promised on Jan 1st.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

Best,

Gerasimos Makris Founder of g-makris.com AI Web Developer | Double Master's in MBA & FinTech and Blockchain

Tech Glossary & Concepts

• Agile: A project management methodology characterized by the division of tasks into short phases of work and frequent reassessment and adaptation of plans.
• Retrospective (Retro): A meeting held by a project team at the end of a project or process to discuss what was successful and what could be improved.
• Scope Creep: When a project's requirements tend to increase over a project lifecycle (e.g., "Oh, can I also add a chat feature?").
• MVP (Minimum Viable Product): A version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development.
• Sprint: A set period of time during which specific work has to be completed and made ready for review (usually 2 weeks).