NewWorkSpaces: Tools & Resources: After Action Review


	After Action Review Description After Action Reviews (AAR’s) help groups reflect on experience by using a simple series of questions to ask about what happened, why it happened, what went well, what needs to be improved, and what was learned. AAR’s were originally developed by the US Army as a means of learning from training experiences. They are now widely used for purposes of learning and reflection related to particular events. An event can be large or small, ranging from a personal phone call to a major conference or an entire, complex project. Reviews may take just a few moments, or many hours, depending on the significance of the event and the need to harvest learning from experience. Results of the review may be documented for extensive use in design, planning or improvement, or they may simply be remembered by those who participate. They are a simple, but very powerful, way to develop habits of reflection by building learning into everyday experiences. Example The ten-member staff and volunteers of a comprehensive community initiative used the After Action Review as the format for their regular, monthly meetings. At these meetings, each participant reported out on their previous month’s activities, which ranged from attending neighborhood meetings to planning for large conferences to conducting training programs for youth civic leaders. Reports took the form of responses to: What were your activities? What were your expected outcomes? What actually happened? What did you learn? What are your planned activities for the next month? What do you expect as an outcome of your activities? Learnings from each report were captured and used for a group conversation about their collective learning, and the implications for their theory of change, their strategies, and planning for ongoing activities. The discipline of learning from experience soon became the group’s habit, and individual members used AAR’s widely in their work with other community groups. Approaches There are three types of AAR’s: formal, informal and personal. Each employs similar questions and the exchange of information, but how they are conducted varies. The following information on these types of AAR’s is excerpted from excellent information available at the website of the UK’s National Electronic Library for Health (http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/knowledge_management/km2/aar_toolkit.asp). Formal AAR’s are conducted following major events and take a considerable amount of planning, preparation and resource materials. Unlike informal or personal AAR’s they are formally called, previously scheduled, formally facilitated, and may include the use of outside observers or data sources. These AAR’s may span a few hours or as much as a few days. The learning that results is well-documented and put to use for a variety of purposes. Informal AARs may be called by any group that has an immediate, real-time need to learn from a shared experience or event. These events may range from a meeting to a learning session, or even a conference call. They take practically no preparation, little time to conduct, and can be held in most any setting. Personal AARs are a very powerful reflective tool for individuals that can be used after any experience at all. They are a simple matter of developing the discipline of asking yourself the same simple questions after an experience that holds potential learning and individual improvement opportunities. By simply asking what happened, what did you expect, what actually happened and why, what did you learn, and what would you do differently next time in a similar experience, one can develop helpful personal reflection habits.

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