We had fun last night in the Dallas Improving office.

The annual chili and cornbread cook-off competition brought us together for some delicious dish sampling.

I like to think of this like product development. For the nearly three years I’ve been at Improving, I’ve joined or participated in this event.

Competitors assess the winning dishes and seek to replicate the success of previous years. Having a retrospective assessment is good for both cook-offs and product development.

The new or enhanced products from years prior should be reviewed and improved in the present year. Capabilities change in technology and products can be improved as a result.

What may have been a quality issue in 2023 might be solved in 2024.

A challenge is setting time aside to figure out what was successful and how to improve on that success. Decomposing success and bringing those elements forward into the product roadmap might be a way to help improve a product.

Testing different element combinations a small, safe-to-fail experiments is a way to innovate current product offerings.

Here’s to chili, cornbread, and product improvement in 2024!

Team connection is an important element for creative work and problem-solving.

Some people connect naturally, and others need to work at establishing connections and building solid, working relationships.

I have a hypothesis that one of the challenges that teams face.

🤔 Do certain team members have “a need to be heard”?

I’m unsure of when I learned how to set my “need to be heard” aside, but it has opened many doors to better relationships. Learning to deeply listen continues to be a skill that helps me build rapport with my colleagues and teams.

“Listen First” is one of the more challenging behaviors that builds and sustains trust.

🤔 Could “a need to be heard” and “Listen First” be a pairing that your teams are overlooking?

Thanks, Erik Boemanns, for the good topic prompt!

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