Book Image

After Action Review: Continuous Improvement Made Easy

By : Artie Mahal
Book Image

After Action Review: Continuous Improvement Made Easy

By: Artie Mahal

Overview of this book

Even if we're not consciously aware of it, we're constantly seeking improvement. This continual quest for improvement begins when you start differentiating between "what was" and "what could be." Through this book, you’ll learn how to apply both informal and formal continuous improvement approaches to reflect upon and analyze your individual work or the work of your team. The book begins by covering the basic facilitation skills that you'll need to conduct an AAR. These skills include active listening, questioning, information gathering and analysis, managing group dynamics, and more. You'll dive deep into the AAR technique and explore all its aspects in detail including its value proposition and frameworks. As you progress through the book, you'll explore the informal and formal approaches to AAR and understand the situations where each can be used. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to apply this technique and its fundamentals to assess the improve the outcome of your project you undertake or a life event.
Table of Contents (8 chapters)

After Action Review Framework

As shown in the figure below, AAR comprises three stages.

Stage 1 - Individual Reflections

The individuals directly involved in a given activity are asked to think of these four questions:

  • What were you trying to do?
  • What actually happened?
  • What did you like?
  • What would you do differently?

This helps the individuals to frame their thoughts without any external influence.

Stage 2 - Group Insights

This is where all the participants and stakeholders of an activity collectively discuss the lessons learned, and frame ideas for improvement and change going forward.

Stage 3 - Recommend Improvements

From the lessons learned and ideas for the future, the whole group or an assigned subset would make a formal report and recommendation for change. This can sometimes take more time, because in some cases a feasibility study may have to be done before recommendation.

This is generally where the AAR Process...