CTO Insights: The Festive Season Slowdown — Turning Lost Weeks Into Strategic Advantage

Transformation pauses — but performance shouldn’t.

Every year, organisations lose 6-8 weeks of real traction.

Project momentum fades. Priorities blur. Delivery stalls until February.

But what if that downtime could become your strategic advantage?

In this edition of CTO Insights, Christian Patten explores how technology and transformation leaders can use the festive season to reset clarity, capability, and cadence — ensuring that January starts fast and March reviews are confident, not chaotic.‍

CTO Insights: Real Perspectives on Strategy, Execution, and Impact

Welcome back to CTO Insights — Amplify’s series featuring transformation and strategy leaders who’ve guided large-scale change across complex organisations.

Each edition brings practical perspectives that challenge assumptions, sharpen focus, and improve decision-making across the C-suite.

For this edition, I’m joined again by Christian Patten, Transformation & Strategy Leader and Managing Partner at Forbes & Company. Drawing on his experience leading multi-billion-dollar transformations across aviation, finance, health, and government, Christian shares why the festive season slowdown isn’t a lost period — it’s a strategic one.‍

Close with Clarity, Not Chaos

Before the break, define what truly matters:

• What must be completed
• What can be safely deferred
• What should be stopped

A clear “end-of-year landing zone” turns December from drift into discipline. As McKinsey reminds us — execution beats intention every time.

Reframe the Slowdown as a Strategic Audit

January isn’t just recovery time — it’s reflection time. Borrow from BCG’s transformation lens: fund the journey, win the medium term, build the right team.

Use the quieter weeks to:

• Audit delivery cadence and backlog realism
• Reassess resource alignment
• Identify the 3–5 initiatives that will drive outsized value

When others restart in February, your team accelerates.

Reinvest in People and Capability

Transformation lives or dies on capability.

January is the perfect window to:

• Reset expectations and accountability
• Refresh technical pipelines and coaching plans
• Re-energise initiative owners and workstream leads

The most valuable output from January isn’t code or tickets — it’s capacity.

Strengthen Your Execution Muscle

Even if delivery pauses, cadence shouldn’t. A light-touch Transformation Office rhythm — short weekly check-ins to review progress and blockers — keeps momentum alive.

By February, you’re not reigniting from a cold start — you’re already warm.

Set the Stage for March — The Real Accountability Moment

By March, every board asks: Are we on track? The difference between confidence and chaos lies in what you do now.

Build your dashboards, metrics, and storylines in December–January so your March review is a confirmation, not a scramble.

Final Thought

The festive slowdown isn’t lost time — it’s strategic time. It’s when great CTOs quietly reset, reframe, and rebuild the engine for next year’s acceleration.

Plan deliberately.

Pause purposefully.

Prove that momentum is a mindset, not a calendar setting.

About the Authors

Genevieve Smith is VP Global Marketing at Amplify-Now, where she leads the company’s global brand, positioning, and go-to-market strategy. With over 20 years’ experience in the tech industry spanning PE-backed SaaS, large multinationals, and sales and marketing consulting, she brings deep expertise across strategic marketing disciplines. Genevieve is passionate about elevating the role of the Transformation Office and helping organisations connect strategy, execution, and measurable impact.

Guest CTO: Christian Patten is a Transformation and Strategy Leader with over 25 years of experience driving organisational performance across aviation, financial services, health, and government. As former Chief Transformation Officer at Airservices Australia, he led a $3.5B transformation that delivered more than $100M in performance uplift while maintaining operational excellence and safety. Today, as Managing Partner at Forbes & Company, Christian works with boards and executive teams to design and execute transformations that balance purpose with performance.