An after-action review (AAR) is a structured process of reflecting on the work of a group by identifying strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. The United States Army first utilized after-action reviews on combat missions. Since then, modern companies such as British Petroleum, Motorola, and General Electric have become proponents. AARs are also used to identify gaps in public health emergency preparedness systems. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a search review of the emergency response led to new communication methods during natural disasters.
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Definition | An After-Action Review (AAR) is a systematic and structured process for analyzing and assessing the outcomes and processes of a specific event or project. It is typically conducted after the event or project has concluded to identify lessons learned and areas for improvement. |
| Purpose | – To evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of an event, project, or operation. – To identify successes and areas that need improvement. – To capture lessons learned for future decision-making and planning. – To promote a culture of continuous learning and improvement within an organization. |
| Key Steps | – Planning: Define the objectives, scope, and participants of the AAR. – Data Collection: Gather information, data, and feedback related to the event or project. – Analysis: Examine the collected data to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. – Discussion: Conduct a structured discussion or meeting with participants to review findings. – Documentation: Document the AAR findings, lessons learned, and action items. – Feedback: Share the AAR results with relevant stakeholders. – Implementation: Act on the lessons learned and recommendations for improvement. |
| Characteristics | – Structured Process: AARs follow a defined process with clear steps and objectives. – Participant Involvement: Involves those who participated in or were affected by the event or project. – Non-Punitive: AARs are not meant for blame but for learning and improvement. – Action-Oriented: Results in actionable recommendations and plans for improvement. – Continuous: AARs are part of an ongoing cycle of learning and improvement. |
| Benefits | – Enhanced Performance: AARs lead to improved performance in future endeavors. – Learning Culture: Fosters a culture of continuous learning and adaptation. – Accountability: Encourages individuals and teams to take responsibility for their actions and outcomes. – Efficiency: Identifies and eliminates inefficiencies and redundant processes. – Innovation: Drives innovation and creative problem-solving. |
| Drawbacks | – Time-Consuming: Conducting AARs can be time-intensive, particularly for large-scale events or projects. – Resistance: Individuals or teams may resist AARs if they fear blame or criticism. – Implementation Challenges: Identifying improvements is one thing; implementing them effectively can be challenging. – Subjectivity: AARs may be influenced by personal biases and perspectives. |
| Use Cases | – Military Operations: AARs are widely used in the military to evaluate missions, exercises, and training events. – Business Projects: In the business world, AARs are employed to assess project outcomes and strategies. – Emergency Response: First responders use AARs to review and improve their responses to emergencies. – Sports Teams: Sports teams often conduct AARs to analyze their performance in games and competitions. |
| Examples | – Military: After a military exercise, a debrief is conducted to assess what worked, what didn’t, and how to refine tactics and procedures. – Business: Following the launch of a new product, a business conducts an AAR to analyze sales, customer feedback, and marketing strategies. – Emergency Services: After responding to a natural disaster, an emergency response team holds an AAR to review coordination, response times, and resource allocation. – Sports: A sports team conducts an AAR to evaluate their performance in a game, reviewing plays, strategies, and player contributions. |
Understanding an after-action review
The process of running through an after action review centers on four questions:
- What did we expect to happen?
- What actually happened?
- What went well, and why?
- What can we improve on, and how?
These questions provide knowledge to the business, and knowledge is power. Put differently, improvement cannot be realized without an understanding of what went wrong.
The five steps of an after action review
Conducting a successful after action review is a matter of following five steps.
Step 1 – Make it a priority
Too many organizations let the review process fall by the wayside. Ideally, a review should be a non-negotiable component of every project.
Prioritizing the completion of an AAR means the project is still fresh in the mind of the project team. No more than 2 weeks should elapse after project completion before an AAR is undertaken.
Step 2 – Involve everyone
The facilitator should gather the project team together and involve them in the entire review process. This ensures that each individual perspective is heard and that no weakness or struggle goes undetected.
Importantly, the facilitator should create an atmosphere of shared improvement. They should stress that the AAR is not a personal performance review.
Step 3 – Conducting the review
The facilitator should then guide the group through the four questions mentioned earlier.
- What was expected to happen? Define the purpose, objectives, and initial timeline. Who was the audience? What were the intended outcomes? What barriers were expected to occur?
- What actually happened? The focus should be a non-judgmental account of what transpired. Involve each member of the project team and resolve inconsistencies in the story if required.
- What went well, and why? The goal here is to identify best practices that can be built into systems for future use. If time is limited, the facilitator can ask every team member what they believed had the greatest direct impact on success.
- What can be improved, and how? How could the team have performed better given the tools at their disposal? How can stumbling blocks or pitfalls be avoided in the future? How might processes change with new insights? What advice would the project team give to a future team?
In answering these questions, some basic ground rules must also be established:
- Participants should share honest observations without resorting to blame or praise.
- Every individual has something important to contribute. No one person possesses all the answers.
- Every idea has equal value. There are no right or wrong ideas.
- Consensus is preferable, but clarification is important in cases where consensus is not possible.
- No record of the AAR will be distributed without the express permission of all participants. The same applies to direct quote usage.
Step 4 – Crafting the report
The final report does not need to be a masterpiece, but it should summarize the points made in the meeting in a shareable format. Include basic information such as the name of the project and the names of those in attendance.
It’s also important to document the best practices that should be repeated and the weaknesses that should be remedied. The document can then be shared with the project sponsor or other relevant leaders.
Step 5 – Implement the changes
Change implementation will vary depending on the industry. But in any case, it should be implemented as quickly as possible.
After-action review and lessons learned
As a team gathers an after-action review report, it’s critical to draw a set of lessons learned.
In project management, lessons learned comprise both positive and negative outcomes of a project.
In this way, the team can use these lessons to improve productivity on upcoming projects.
And prevent the major pitfalls of upcoming projects with similar features.
After-action review and root cause analysis
The after-action review process is also critical to understand the root cause of a problem.
In other words, understand the relation between what made the project successful and unsuccessful.
By uncovering the root causes, a team can improve its performance on upcoming projects.
After-action Review vs. Post-mortem
Post-mortem analyses often focus on the negative side, on things that did not work, both tools though are extremely useful in aligning teams around how to make progress over projects’ failures.
After-action Review vs. Retrospective Analysis
Both retrospective analysis and after-action review focus on understanding projects’ mistakes after they have been closed.
Thus, both tools are useful in having teams improve performance after the end of the project.
Whereas the after-action review focuses on understanding why the outcome was not as expected. The retrospective analysis is more about understanding how to improve the process as new projects roll in.
Key takeaways:
- An after-action review is a structured project review that assesses strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.
- An after-action review is centered around four key questions that give an important business insight into what worked and could be improved in the future.
- An after-action review can be completed in five steps. A facilitator is important in maintaining a constructive, collaborative, and open discussion that enhances strengths and remedies weaknesses.
Key Highlights:
- Origin and Application: After-Action Reviews (AARs) are a structured process for reflecting on group efforts to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. The concept originated in the United States Army during combat missions and has been adopted by modern companies and public health emergency preparedness systems.
- Process and Questions: The AAR process involves four central questions:
- What were the expectations?
- What actually happened?
- What went well and why?
- What can be improved and how?
- Knowledge for Improvement: AARs provide valuable insights to organizations for enhancing performance. Improvement can only occur with a clear understanding of what went wrong and how to address it.
- Five Steps of AAR:
- Make it a Priority: Prioritize conducting AARs after each project within two weeks to maintain fresh insights.
- Involve Everyone: Gather the project team to involve all perspectives and create an atmosphere of shared improvement.
- Conduct the Review: Guide the team through the four key questions, focusing on expectations, actual outcomes, successes, and areas for improvement.
- Craft the Report: Summarize the meeting’s points in a shareable report that includes best practices and weaknesses for future reference.
- Implement Changes: Swiftly implement changes based on AAR insights to drive improvement.
- Lessons Learned: AARs contribute to lessons learned, which encompass positive and negative project experiences. These lessons are incorporated into subsequent projects to enhance productivity and prevent repeated pitfalls.
- Root Cause Analysis: AARs aid in understanding the root causes of project success or failure, contributing to improved future performance.
- After-Action Review vs. Post-mortem: AARs and post-mortem analyses both focus on lessons learned and process improvement. While AARs emphasize understanding both successes and failures, post-mortems tend to focus on inefficiencies and problems.
- After-Action Review vs. Retrospective Analysis: Retrospective analyses, common in Agile project management, also focus on lessons learned. While AARs delve into project outcomes and reasons for success or failure, retrospectives concentrate on process improvement and future project cycles.
| Comparison’s Table | After-Action Review (AAR) | Retrospective Meeting | Post-Mortem Analysis | Lessons Learned Session |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Structured debriefing process to review actions taken, identify successes and areas for improvement, and capture lessons learned for future application. | Team meeting held after a project or event to reflect on what went well, what didn’t, and how to improve processes or outcomes in the future. | Formal examination of the factors contributing to the success or failure of a project or initiative, often conducted after its completion. | Session dedicated to reflecting on experiences, capturing insights, and distilling key lessons learned for future reference or application. |
| Purpose | To facilitate continuous learning, improve performance, and enhance organizational effectiveness by systematically reviewing and applying lessons from past experiences. | To promote reflection, identify actionable insights, and drive process improvement based on retrospective analysis of past actions or outcomes. | To analyze the factors influencing project outcomes, identify root causes of issues or challenges, and inform future planning and decision-making. | To capture and document valuable insights, best practices, and areas for improvement arising from past experiences to guide future actions and decision-making. |
| Key Components | – Identification of objectives and desired outcomes – Review of actions taken and outcomes achieved – Analysis of factors contributing to success or failure – Identification of lessons learned and actionable recommendations | – Reflection on project or event goals and outcomes – Discussion of what worked well and what could be improved – Identification of actionable steps for process enhancement – Documentation of key insights and decisions | – Analysis of project goals, scope, and stakeholders – Examination of project execution, challenges, and outcomes – Identification of root causes of issues or failures – Development of recommendations for future projects or initiatives | – Sharing of personal experiences and observations – Discussion of successes, failures, and challenges encountered – Identification of key takeaways and actionable insights – Documentation of lessons learned and recommendations |
| Application | Applied in various contexts, including military operations, emergency response, project management, and organizational learning initiatives. | Utilized in project management, agile development, software engineering, and team-based environments to promote continuous improvement and innovation. | Commonly used in project management, risk management, quality assurance, and organizational development to evaluate project performance and inform future planning. | Employed in organizational learning, knowledge management, process improvement, and training programs to capture and disseminate valuable insights and best practices. |
| Focus | Focuses on learning from past experiences, identifying areas for improvement, and applying lessons learned to enhance future performance and decision-making. | Focuses on evaluating project outcomes, identifying process bottlenecks, and implementing corrective actions to optimize team performance and project success. | Focuses on analyzing project performance, assessing project management practices, and identifying strategies for mitigating risks and improving project outcomes. | Focuses on extracting valuable insights, distilling best practices, and disseminating lessons learned to facilitate organizational learning and improve future performance. |
| Benefits | – Promotes continuous learning and adaptation – Enhances team performance and decision-making – Identifies opportunities for process improvement – Captures and preserves organizational knowledge | – Encourages open communication and collaboration – Facilitates team learning and development – Drives process improvement and innovation – Enhances project outcomes and stakeholder satisfaction | – Provides insights into project performance and effectiveness – Identifies opportunities for process optimization and risk mitigation – Enhances organizational agility and resilience – Supports evidence-based decision-making and planning | – Captures valuable insights and best practices – Enhances organizational learning and knowledge sharing – Improves decision-making and problem-solving – Supports continuous improvement and innovation |
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