04/27/2018

The After Action Review: A Leader’s Guide

How do you improve your team with an after action review?

The After Action Review (AAR) is a deceptively simple yet powerful way to stimulate the growth and performance of any group of people.  As an organizational learning tool it has been used to transform small teams and entire armies into high performers.   But as with anything, success comes in the doing, and not everyone does these well.

Today, we’ll try to change some thinking about the AAR, and arm you with some techniques that you can put into effective practice with your own team.  If you don’t get it right the first time, a good AAR can at least improve your odds the second time around.

The After Action Review has been credited with helping pull the U.S. Army out of its post-Vietnam funk.  By the time I joined up in the 1980s, the AAR was a way of life and part of the natural order of the universe.  We did them all the time, whether it was after our morning physical fitness regime, or deep in the woods during a training exercise.

Please select this link to read the complete article from RapidStart Leadership.