GUIDELINES FOR A FORMAL AFTER ACTION REVIEW

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Purpose:
An AAR is a structured review process that allows participants to discover for themselves what happened,
why it happened, and how it can improved. An AAR is not a critique; the objective is not to determine
the success or failure of a response.

Session Outcome:
To document the lessons learned from the AAR so the improvements can be institutionalized.

Who should be involved in the AAR

All (or a representative group of ) participants involved in the incident being discussed. All viewpoints
are relevant and beneficial. It is important to consider the different perspectives that event organizers
may have from the actual participants.

How to conduct the AAR

• Decide ahead of time:
• Who will facilitate the session? The facilitator of the session should be neutral and work to ensure
all viewpoints are expressed. (For the purposes of this document the term facilitator will refer to
the leader of the session.)
• What supplies will be needed?
• flipchart, storyboard, handouts.....
• A neutral facilitator focuses the discussion and works to ensure participation. The facilitator does not
critique nor judge the success or failure of the incident being discussed.
• Keep the review focused and concise. Discourage debates and excuses.
• Encourage participation from all participants.
• Let the participants identify the situation for themselves (including their mistakes and successes), the
facilitator/leader does not critique.
• To encourage participation the facilitator should use leading questions such as:
• “What were the steps involved?”
• “In your opinion, what would have been the ideal way of doing that?”
• “How could communication have been better”
• “Next time what would you do differently”
• “What are some ways we could have prevented the incident from occurring ”
• Try starting the session by making a storyboard flowchart of the event. In this phase, seek to establish
a common understanding of what happened and the order in which the events took place. Do not
analyze the event for what should have occurred, merely document WHAT ACTUALLY
OCCURRED.
• After the flowchart is made, analyze the flowchart for improvement opportunities. Ask questions
such as,
• Were the proper individuals notified in a timely fashion?
• Did all participants in the event have a clear understanding of their roles?
• Is there a more effective way to communicate?
• Are there any procedures which are unnecessarily burdensome?
• How would the ideal flowchart differ?
• What safeguards can be put into the system?
• Are there any redundancies?
• Are there any steps that could have been prevented by doing a prior step correctly?
• Were the proper resources readily available?

AAR Page 1 of 4 Rev. Date: 3/7/1996 5:00 PM

 Formal After Action Review Form
AAR for: ______________________________________________________
Facilitator/Leader _______________________________________________

Date:_______________________________ Location:____________________

Start Time:___________________ End Time:___________________

Key Lessons Learned From AAR

What should be done differently? What should we continue to do? What policy changes should be
made? What does the AAR group recommend?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
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Action Item List

Assign Action Items for the implementation of the lessons learned.

Person Task Deadline

AAR Page 2 of 4 Rev. Date: 3/7/1996 5:00 PM

 GUIDELINES FOR AN INFORMAL AFTER ACTION REVIEW
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Purpose:
An informal AAR is much less structured than a formal AAR. An informal AAR is simply a review of
the weeks activities and a discussion of improvement ideas between you and your staff. The purposes
include:
• To allow your staff input on how to improve the effectiveness of your operation.
• To help the department take meaningful actions that are ground level specific so the employees can
see improvements occurring within their own area.
• To generate improvement actions that will be monitored for completion.

Time Commitment:
The time to conduct an AAR will vary week to week but, on average should take between 10-20 minutes.

Session Outcome:
The ideas gathered during the review should be captured and actions should be generated on improving
your area.

Who should be involved in the AAR

Informal AARs should be conducted at every PFD level. Every manager and supervisor should hold an
informal AAR with their direct reports.

Frequency of informal AARs

Ideally, each work week would conclude with an AAR. Informal AARs should be held on a regular basis.
At the least, an informal AAR with your staff should be held monthly.

How to conduct an informal AAR

An AAR can done at the end of regular staff meetings. The ideas generated should be captured to enable
them to be prioritized and acted upon. Some of the key questions to ask are:
• What went well this week? How can we institutionalize the success?
• What went poorly this week? How can we ensure it doesn’t happen again?

Some different methods for capturing the ideas are:

• On flipcharts
A) Use a happy face (for things that went well) and a sad face (for things that went poorly). Refer to
figure 1
B) Writing the ideas under appropriate titles Refer to figure 2
• Using storyboard cards.
Figure 1 Figure 2
WENT WELL WENT POORLY

•Formworked well •Need to have set place for messages

•Newcleaner works great •Need newboots
•Good teamwork •Couldn't find MSDSs
•Formworked well •Nmeedessagesto have set place for
•Newcleaner works great
•Good teamwork •Need newboots
•Couldn't find MSDSs
ACTION ITEMLIST ACTION ITEMLIST
PERSON TASK DEADLINE PERSON TASK DEADLINE

AAR Page 3 of 4 Rev. Date: 3/7/1996 5:00 PM

Some tips to make your AAR go more smoothly:
• Keep the review focused and concise. Discourage debates and excuses.
• Encourage participation from all participants.
• Let the participants identify the weeks events for themselves (including mistakes and successes), the
facilitator/leader does not critique.
• To encourage participation, the session leader can use leading questions such as:
• How could we have worked smarter this week?
• What were some opportunities to increase communication this week?
• How was our teamwork?
• Are there any procedures which are unnecessarily burdensome?
• Were the proper resources readily available?

Capturing action items

The purpose an AAR is to generate ideas for action. These actions must be identified and then monitored
until completion. The following format can be effective in keeping track of assigned actions.

Action Item List

Person Task Deadline

AAR Page 4 of 4 Rev. Date: 3/7/1996 5:00 PM