INFORMATION: RESTORING SANITY

The Principles and Process of an After Action Review (AAR)

AARs are used by a number of federal agencies that deal with crises such as wild fires and natural disasters. Police forces also use them after significant incidents. I’ve worked with a few organizations who relied on this process after a crisis, including the National Park Service and a few corporations.

Any incident is an extraordinary opportunity for learning, not only relevant to the incident, but also about the organization’s culture. How well did we communicate? Where did trust or distrust factor in? Were our values evident in our behaviors?

I love this process for what it yields in terms of actionable learning. Its entire focus is on performance and learning how to do things better. I love it even more because it brings a system together in its diversity of people, roles, and ranks and treats everyone with respect for their contribution.

It is the diversity of perceptions that creates genuine insight. And the participatory process of an AAR guarantees that learning will be quickly implemented. People want to contribute and learn; we support what we create. The AAR process uses these internal motivators when we need them most—at a time of crisis, when something’s gone wrong. In this time of never-ending crises, this is a healthy and reliable process.

Core Elements of an AAR

  Priority is given to this process. No matter what, time is made available to learn from the crisis or situation.

  Everyone who was part of the action or crisis is present and expected to contribute.

  Rank and hierarchy don’t matter: it is acknowledged that everyone has something of potential value to contribute.

  The process is disciplined. Specific questions are asked in order. Facilitation is needed to ensure that only one question is answered at a time and that each person speaks without being contradicted or challenged.

  Learnings are recorded in some form. They are available as lessons learned for the benefit of others.

  The value of learning is visible in consequent actions. People feel smarter and gain confidence that they can deal with the next crisis.

The Four Questions of an AAR

To be asked in this order:

1. What just happened? Everyone offers a personal description; no one is challenged on whether their description is accurate. Widely divergent descriptions give the most information.

2. Why do you think it happened? People offer their interpretations, again without being challenged. Then these are explored for their diversity and commonalities. This exploration usually reveals a great deal of information beyond the incident. The culture becomes visible, especially around hierarchy, communications, and trust.

3. What can we learn from this? Here is where the richness of diverse perceptions can be shaped into learning outcomes that build on the complexity of the situation rather than overly simplified analyses.

4. How will we apply these learnings? Specific actions, defined outcomes, specified work, and a motivated team—all possible because of this good process.