After-action Reviews What was learned and what could be done better the next time

An AAR or after-action review is a simple conversational method to review an event after its completion to discuss, what went well, what didn’t go so well, what was learned, and what could be done better the next time.

Background

We operate in a complex and demanding environment. In order to succeed, we must collaborate effectively with others to achieve both individual and team goals. We must take every opportunity to learn from our daily experiences and improve our performance. One way we can do this is by reflecting on what happened during a business activity, why it happened, and how we can learn from it.

However, the pace and unending flow of events in business, such as projects, tasks, presentations, and meetings, combined with the pressure to meet deadlines and handle emergencies, often leaves little time for reflection.

This can happen at the personal, team, and organizational levels. We may not have time for a wrap-up review at the end of a project because there is pressure to begin the next one, and before we know it, the team has disbanded, and it is difficult to get everyone together for a meeting. As a result, little is learned from past events and actions, mistakes are repeated, and blame is prevalent.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. By taking a little time to invest in after-action reviews, we can regularly reflect on and learn from our experiences. This discipline allows us to continually improve as individuals, teams, and organizations.

Introduction

An after-action review (AAR) is a discussion of a business event or action that enables the individuals involved to better learn from their daily business experiences. AARs ask the questions: What happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? [What, How, Why] What was learned?

Fundamental to the success of an AAR is that the spirit should be one of openness and learning. AARs are not about problem-fixing or allocating blame.

AARs are powerful because they can be applied across a broad spectrum of events, from two individuals conducting a five-minute AAR at the end of a short meeting to a day-long AAR held by a project team at the end of a large project. Lessons-learned are not only tacitly absorbed on the spot by the individuals involved but can be explicitly documented and shared with a broader audience.

After Action Reviews

An AAR is a simple but powerful tool that continuously allows individuals and teams to learn from their everyday experiences. In essence, at the end of every event, several questions are asked:

1. What were the desired outcomes?
2. What were the actual results?
3. Why were the outcomes different from those planned?
4. What was learned?

Events

An event can be as small as “a ten-minute phone call” or as large a “major five-year project to build an oil refinery.” But whatever its nature, it typically has a purpose, a start, a finish, and measurable objectives.

An AAR is held at the end of an event. The effort put into an AAR should be commensurate with the size and scope of the event under review. An individual can hold an AAR on his or her own after a small everyday task like a phone call to a client. Two or three people can conduct it at the end of a meeting. It can be held by a small project team, say at the end of a conference or by a major project team at the end of a multi-year global project. And of course, anywhere on the spectrum in between.

Here are some examples of events:

• A telephone call to a client
• An internal meeting
• A sales call to a client
• A project

Formal, Informal, and Personal AARs

Although the fundamentals are identical, there are essentially three types of AAR. Depending on the event, an AAR can be:

• Formal
• Informal
• Personal

All AARs follow the same general format and involve the exchange of observations and ideas. How an AAR is conducted, however, depends on its type.

Formal AARs

A formal AAR is resource-intensive and involves the planning and preparing supporting materials. An example of a formal AAR would be one conducted at the end of a project, especially a major one.

Formal reviews:

• Have external observers or other means of data gathering
• Take time to prepare
• Take time to conduct
• Are scheduled beforehand
• Are conducted where they can be best supported

Informal AARs

Informal AARs require much less preparation and planning and can often be held on the spur of the moment. An informal AAR would be conducted, for example, after a much smaller event, such as a presentation.

Informal AARs are where the power lies in this process.

Informal reviews:

• Are conducted as appropriate by anyone
• Take no little or no time to prepare
• Need not take long to conduct
• Are conducted as needed
• Are held anywhere appropriate

Personal AARs

An individual holds Personal AARs. They are usually quick informal affairs, for example, reviewing the outcome of a telephone call to a customer. Or they can take a little longer and be more formal, for example, reviewing your part at the end of a major project. Formal Personal AARs are ideally held with a coach or mentor.

A Brief History of After-Action Reviews

The After Action Review was first developed as a learning methodology in the 1970s by the US Army. Its purpose was to create a structured means to facilitate day-to-day learning from combat training exercises. The reasons for success or failure in combat training exercises are often not clear. AARs were designed to tease out the learnings from such exercises.

The AAR methodology has been highly successful in the US Army and today is so firmly embedded in its culture that an AAR takes place after every training event.

AARs were first adopted in business in the late ’90s. One of the first articles on the subject was published in the Harvard Business Review in 1993 by Harvard Business School professor David Garvin entitled “Building a Learning Organisation”. Organizations that have adopted AARs as part of their culture include BP-Amoco, Steelcase, Motorola, and General Electric.

The Army's After Action Review (AAR) is arguably one of the most successful organizational learning methods yet devised.

Yet, most every corporate effort to graft this truly innovative practice into their culture has failed because, again and again, people reduce the living practice of AAR's to a sterile technique.

Credit: Peter Senge

Resources

• Wikipedia: After-action review

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