After Action Review

Steps

Before

• Orginizing the meeting right after the event.

After Action Reviews should be conducted as soon as possible after the event, in order to have fresh memories of it, and learning can be applied immediately. As well as the project manager and the key members of the project, it could be useful to invite the project client or sponsor.

• Building a climate of trust

The ideal climate for an AAR is one of trust, openness and commitment to learning. AARs are learning events, not critiques, and so should not be treated as performance evaluation. During AAR the hierarchic organization should be excluded, so that junior members can feel free to comment the seniors’ actions.

• Recruiting a facilitator

Ideally an AAR should be facilitated by someone who has not taken part in the project so that he/she cqn remain objective. The main purposes of the facilitator are to help the team to learn by drawing out answers, insights and previously unspoken issues; to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to contribute.

During

• Analizing what happened and what was supposed to happen

Ask ‘what did we set out to do?’ and ‘what did we actually achieve?’. It could be useful to revisit the original plan. This can help to identify the part of the porject that were effective and the ones that were not.

• Analizing the success obteined

Ask ’what went well? ’ Here you are looking to build on best practice as well as learning from mistakes. For each point that is made about what went well, keep asking a ‘why?’ question.

• Analizing what should be improved

Ask ’What could lhave gone better?’. The focus is not on failures but on imporvements. Even if no mistakes are made as such there is almost always scope for improvement. Again, for each point that is made, keep asking a ‘why?’ question to get to the root of the reason. Try to ask to participant about things that should be done differently next time.

• Ensuring that everyone expressed is personal opinion

It is important that participants do not leave the meeting feeling that they have not been heard or that things have been left unsaid.

• Recording the meeting

It is important to have a clear and interesting account of the After Action Review and its learning points, both as a reminder to those involved and in order to effectively share that learning with others.

After

• Sharing the learning

As well as distributing your account of the After Action Review to the project team, you need to consider who else could benefit from it. You also need to make your learning more widely available so that people working on similar projects in the future might also benefit.