After Action Review: An Enabling Structure for Virtual Debriefs and More
— Transforming Organizations, Revitalizing Communities and Developing Human Potential
After Action Review: An enabling structure for virtual debriefs and much more
Co-authored by Carol Gorelick, Ed.D.
Have you ever facilitated an impactful event – and now everyone has gone home but you didn't have a chance to debrief? When the meeting is over and the decisions are made – don't miss the opportunity for getting clear on how you got there by using technology to debrief without having to be in the same room. One enabling structure that we have found to be incredibly effective is the AAR:
The After Action Review [AAR] is a process that provides a feedback loop between intended and actual results in a team meeting. It can function as the 'heartbeat' of a cycle that brings leading, learning, and execution into the service of sustaining success for your organization. You can leverage the process in a virtual debrief of your session, meeting, conference or event. Carol Gorelick, Associate Editor of the Collaborative Change Library is a long-time user and facilitator of After Action Reviews. Here is her process:
Process
AAR is a short focused event for a team or group, conducted by the group, in as little as 30 min. The intention is that everyone that participated in the ‘action,’ also participates in the After Action Review. It originated with the US Army as a review process after an active engagement to inform the next battle. A news commentator talking about the USA’s 45th President viewing the capture of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the situation room recently pointed out, “They didn't do an After Action Report.” An AAR consists of four [or five as we explain below] questions that are answered by everyone in the room in this order:
graphic recording by Chris Simon
What was supposed to happen?
What did actually happen?
What would we do again/keep the same?
What will we do differently?
What are the Agreements?
An AAR follows a set of important agreements that include the following:
No stripes. This means rank (identified by the stripes on a uniform on the chest or shoulder) is not and cannot be invoked as part of this conversation – After Action Review assumes a ‘level sharing field.’
Hear every voice.
Not punitive.
No value judgments.
What is shared in the room is agreed to stay in the room.
Some Context
The intention of the process is to be content-neutral. It’s a way to surface process – not only the content and to identify possible course corrections – with a focus on continuous improvement.
Beyond use in the military, the process has been championed in Action Learning in corporations, not-for-profits, government and communities. Fourth Quadrant Partners incorporates the AAR in their Emergent Learning Platform® [4QP].
4 + 1 Questions
The original (and most popular) version uses 4 questions. Over time, a 5th Question was added. They can be stated as follows:
What was the original intent? What was supposed to happen?
What were our actual results? What actually happened?
[+1: What caused our results? What did we learn?]
What will we sustain or improve? What will we do again/the same way?
What is the next opportunity to test what we learned? What will we do differently?
While the entire process is aimed at learning, the added question: “What did we learn?” can at times shift focus and perspective in a meaningful way to surface additional or specific learning outcomes.
Virtual Debrief with AAR
The AAR is among the tools that can still be effective and yield meaningful output when ideal situations are not available. In our experience, a virtual debrief after the fact often does not bring back every person who attended the actual event. While full participation in this context is desirable it is often simply unrealistic – we have found the outputs are still meaningful.
Bring the group together in a video conferencing session and walk through the four questions. Since some participants are likely to be absent, you may ask one person to be a note-taker, or you can leverage a shared virtual document on Google Docs or the shared documents provided in platforms like QiqoChat.
Other Riffs and Iterations
Another ideal of the AAR process is that each participant speaks on each of the four questions. But what if you have a larger group you want to engage, and you only have a 30 min. session window? For those virtual sessions you can try these two iterations:
Give everyone access to a shared cloud-stored document [on Google or QiqoChat, for example] and let a facilitator talk the group through typing their responses to each of the questions on the shared document. Then review the results with the group. Depending on the document platform used, this can at times result in more honest responses when answers can be typed anonymously.
Leverage four virtual breakout rooms [more on this in a future TOOLS4change webinar] and have each room answer just one of the four questions. Close the session with a report out in the large group.
graphics by Chris Simon
With larger in-person groups, we have successfully used a similar approach when pressed for time and split the group into four subgroups (by tables, for example) to answer one each of the four AAR questions – followed by a report out from each group to the room – again with the intention to give each participant a voice in the process. Groups could also report out on post-it notes for full group review as in the example image shared here.
In both onsite or online environments, we highly recommend the support of a graphic recorder and spending a bit of time thinking about the facilitation of the process. This is not a leader-led process! We typically ask whether a veteran or active duty military member is participating in our After Action Reviews, if there is, we invite that individual to lead us through the process. Whoever helps to facilitate – should be sure to note when stepping out of that facilitator role into contributing content. Carol often says, “Okay, I am taking my facilitator hat off for a moment…” before making a content statement in the process flow.
What it’s not:
A word of caution. Don’t use an AAR:
If not everyone gets to speak
If participants fear retaliation
As the only learning tool
How else can I leverage an AAR?
After Action Reviews can be [we think, should be] part of your individual, team, or group practice. They can also be leveraged within learning frameworks, and you may consider adding the full Action Review Cycle to your practice and routines.
And check out NEXUS4change’s webinar series of 30-min. high-impact change tool talks. Check our events page [www.NEXUS4change.com/events] for more on the power of Design Teams, the Change Formula, Collaborative Roadmaps, Appreciative Benchmarking and more.