After tax season, most firms are already behind again.
Everyone's exhausted, everyone wants a break, and most teams move on without ever asking what actually broke. What worked, what didn't, where the bottlenecks were, where the client handoffs fell through, where we hit deadlines we shouldn't have had to scramble for.
Here's the thing. If we don't capture that while it's fresh, you lose it. Then September hits and you're dealing with the same issues you dealt with last September. The same bottlenecks. The same scrambles. Nothing changes because nobody stopped to ask what needed to.
We're doing the opposite internally right now. Full post-season debrief with the team. We're digging into:
It's not complicated. But it only works if you do it while everything is still fresh, before the details fade and the team moves on. And it ties directly into how we think about team energy and momentum the rest of the year.
Every firm has deadlines. We're trying to get better at debriefing ours instead of just surviving them.
The bottom line? Most teams move on after tax season without asking what actually broke. The firms that capture what worked, what didn't, and where the handoffs fell through are the ones that don't repeat the same problems next season.
It doesn't take much. A real conversation with your team while it's fresh can save you from reliving the same September over and over.
Don't just survive your deadlines. Debrief them.
