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After Action Review: A Structure For Project Reflection

by frankbradley on November 9th, 2010
29 Comments



This is the first of a two part series looking at “After Action Reviews”. They are a useful tool for analyzing what happened, why it happened, and how it can be done better, by the participants and those responsible for the project

Taking a step back and reviewing a project, whether team based or individual is something that not a lot of people do these days.  The usual excuse is that they are too busy, and are under pressure to immediately move on to the next project.

All of us are under time pressure, however if we plan accordingly then we really should set aside time at the end of a project to assess the reasons behind it’s success, or failure.  This creates an opportunity to learn, to ensure mistakes are not repeated, and to identify what worked well, so that it can be used again.

About 5 years ago, my then manager asked me to join the Knowledge Management Team.  One of the projects that I was involved in from the start was After Action Reviews.  I have participated in After Action Reviews, from both sides of the table, as a facilitator running them for colleagues, and also as a participant, when I’ve wanted to look back on a project that has been completed.

In this blog post I will share with you some of the key principles of After Action Reviews.  I hope it catches your attention and perhaps it is something that you might use in the future.

Structure of an After Action Review

  1. What was the objective going into the project?
    This is always an interesting part of the review.  The facilitator will get each participant to give their interpretation of what the objective of the project was.  It’s usually not a good sign if there are lots of different opinions about what the objective was.
  2. What happened during the project?
    In this part of the review participants focus on the facts that emanate from the lifetime of the project.  The facilitator plays an important role at this stage to ensure that people don’t start focusing on why certain things happen.
  3. Why did things happen in the way they did?
    This is where the participants start looking at why certain things happened, building upon the outputs of the “what happened” session.  This is an opportunity to dig deeper and reflect.  The facilitator is really crucial here as it is key that no blame is assigned during this process.
  4. What should happen next time?
    This is where participants decide the output of the review.  The facilitator will ask participants the following 3 key questions:

# What should you stop doing?
Activities that had a negative effect during the project.
# What should you continue doing?
Activities that had a positive effect during the project
# What should you start doing?
Activities that should have happened during the project, but didn’t

In my experience After Action Reviews have normally been applied to team projects.  That’s not to say however that the framework can’t be used for projects you are working on individually.  I’ve used this methodology to review projects I’ve worked on as part of a team, as well as those which I’ve worked on individually.

In part 2 of this series, I will share with you what can be done to ensure a successful After Action Review.

Before this, I’d be interested to know your thoughts on this process.  Is it something where you would find valuable?  Do you use a different approach to reviewing projects?  Please use the comments to let us know.

The views expressed on this post are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, Oracle.

Image credited to http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterkaminski/



Category: Business expansion, entrepreneurship, Green Business

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The Author:

I live in Kilkenny, Ireland, and I'm married with one daughter. I was born in Derry, and came to Kilkenny via Manchester, England, and Dublin. My passion is all things Social Media, and for the last 2 years I have been working as a Social Media Evangelist for Oracle, where I have worked for the last 8 years. This role entails, promoting the use of Social Media internally for improved communication and collaboration. My other interests include sports, especially football (soccer), reading, video games, movies/tv, music and walking. http://frankbradley.tumblr.com/

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  • http://twitter.com/fredchannel Fred

    Thanks for sharing Frank! As you mentioned, this might work better for team projects. I see a lot of value in actually performing step 4, especially answering those three questions.
    We work with a project management software so we are more focused on numbers. Those questions make you pay attention better to the performance and improvement aspects.

  • http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

    Hi Frank, this is great! I think the tendency can sometimes be to only review after something has gone wrong or not according to plan. I also think that this is important for teams in that what is learnt from the experience is often transferable to future projects.

  • http://blog.myprojecttracker.com Barney Austen

    HI Frank. I think this post sums up the requirements for an “after review” very well and would also agree with the point that Niall makes about it often only happening when something goes wrong.

    The most fundamental part of any review is to make sure the lessons learned are implemented into the project delivery mechanism (whatever that may be) in terms of process and oversight. It sounds complicated – but really doesn’t need to be. The appetite simply needs to be there to make sure change happens!

    Thanks for sharing.

  • http://www.stopthinksocial.com/ David Christopher

    AAR’s are really important, and as Niall says it is just as important to look at the things you did right as well to ensure you do those things again. In fact, AAR’s can be viewed negatively because the expectation is to criticise individuals on what they did wrong. By positioning them more on the positive side of what you did right the uptake and engagement and results can be very beneficial.

    Looking forward to part 2. Then we can sit down and do an AAR on your blog post ;-)

  • Facundo

    Interesting framework Frank. I look forward to the second part, especially if you can enphasize on how to implement the corrective action that may come out of the review

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  • http://www.seefincoaching.com/blog Elaine Rogers

    Ah now this is an interesting post!
    I am still working on suggestions from your last 2 blogposts – can we review how often you blog? I need more time to complete my other plans of action ;)

    This is a great post Frank, thanks for sharing the process with us!
    I agree with Niall and Barney, that often things are only reviewed only when gone wrong, and we are not bringing our positive actions forward for repetition in future projects.
    I have just returned from the World Travel Market in London, where I attended with my business partner (another business I am involved with) and a lot was going on.
    I think this is a great model for us to sit down and review our experiences, actions, and outcomes, as we worked together and separately whilst there.

    Thank you (again!)

  • Anonymous

    Thanks Fred. Yes, this is designed primarily for teams, however the main principle can also be applied to work we do individually. While Step 4 is probably the point at which you get concrete outcomes, if you don’t perform steps 1 through 3, it will be difficult to arrive at Step 4, with the correct mindset.

  • http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

    Lol David, then we would have a Part 3. That’s the other thing with project management, realise it’s not going to finish on time ;-)

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for the comment Niall. Running an After Action Review even after a successful project is something that is encouraged, but as you say often ignored. Sometimes a project can be very successful, but if time isn’t taken to understand why it was a success, then you are not making a commitment to learning.

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for the comment Barney. As you say it’s all about appetite. In my experience this is a huge factor in determining if something will be learned. I’ve quite often had involvement in Reviews where there was a distinct lack of interest and passion from participants, and to honest nothing was achieved. I’ll cover this in more detail in Part 2.

  • Anonymous

    Good point David. As I mentioned in my reply to Barney, the attitude of the participants is vital to the success. The emphasis is on the Project Sponsor to ensure that people come into the AAR, knowing that it isn’t all about a witch hunt, and finding out who to blame.

  • Anonymous

    Thanks Facundo for your comment. Application of what is learned during the Review is something that I will cover in Part 2.

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for the comment Elaine. Great to hear that you are getting something out of my posts. At the moment I commit to doing one blog post a week. Each week I alternate between posting here on Bloggertone and over on the Stop Think Social Blog. So far I’m getting into a rhythm, but I’m currently behind schedule as I should have posted to Stop Think Social last week. Life has a habit of throwing things up, but I’m planning to catchup as we speak!!!

    Glad to hear that that you might find a use for this framework. Come back and let us know via a comment if you find it beneficial once you’ve put the process into practice.

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  • http://www.tweakyourbiz.com Niall Devitt

    Thank you, Stacy, we’re all just learning ;)

  • http://www.tweakyourbiz.com Niall Devitt

    Thanks, Jim – I’m glad you approve!u00a0

  • http://www.garrendennylane.ie/blog Lorna

    I have to admit I hardly ever use Linked In and really feel I should be utilising it more. u00a0I became fed up with it when each week when I get the weekly digest and I see people’s updates are full of nonsensical tweets. I sometimes engage in discussions but I am really not using it to its full potential. u00a0I’d love a post on Branch Out by the way – what is your opinion on it as I have just signed up to it but haven’t done anything with it as yet.nAnother bug bear of mine is when I see on the weekly roundup email that I get, that A wrote a recommendation for B and B recommended A too – at least space them out by a week or two so it doesn’t look so obvious that you’re doing each other a favour!nyes, i need to crack the nut that is Linked In :)

  • http://twitter.com/xcelbusiness Helen Cousins

    That’s a really great Linkedinu00a0sin list Niall thanks!

  • http://www.tweakyourbiz.com Niall Devitt

    Thank you, Helen :)

  • http://www.tweakyourbiz.com Niall Devitt

    Good luck with it, Des and thanks for your comment!

  • http://www.tweakyourbiz.com Niall Devitt

    Thank you, Belinda, Good luck with it and remember it’s mostly just comommon sense :)

  • Hugh Alford

    Thank you for wrting this Niall.nGreat ten.nTunedIn is more engaging than LinkedInnn”If you don’t use it – you lose it!”nhttp://fruitsofsuccesswithhugh.blogspot.com/nu00a0

  • http://www.tweakyourbiz.com Niall Devitt

    Hi Lorna, thanks for the input, I haven’t really used BranchOut so can’t really comment I’m afraid :(

  • Paul Ferns

    Hi Niall,u00a0thanks for the list, it was very interesting. One thing that annoys me and which I must confess I”m alsou00a0guilty of doing,u00a0is the people connecting to people that they met once and will probable never meet again phenomenon.u00a0These contacts are just seat fillers like the stand-ins onu00a0Oscar night. I would like to see a system whereby you could rate a member in your network so that someone you have a lot of contact with is higher than someone you rarely if ever have contact with. For example I saw recently someone I wanted to make contact withu00a0who was outside of my network. I noticed they were connected to someone I knew well enough to asku00a0if they couldu00a0arrange a meeting for me only for my contact to tell me they really didn’t know that personu00a0at all and that they wouldn’t actually feel confortable contacting them. Kind of defeats the purpose of addingu00a0someoneu00a0to your professional networku00a0don’t you agree? anyway, great article, Thanks. Paulu00a0u00a0

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001165235221 James Wester

    Great insight Niall. u00a0Thanks mate.

  • http://twitter.com/LaneyOfLimerick Laney DeJesus

    I don’t know Niall if I share this on Twitter it’s going to automatically hit my over 1200 audience on Linkedin. I liked it to my Facebook page instead. :-) nn8 & 9 I see a lot of happening on Linkedin.nnGood read!

  • http://twitter.com/LaneyOfLimerick Laney DeJesus

    I don’t know Niall if I share this on Twitter it’s going to automatically hit my over 1200 audience on Linkedin. I liked it to my Facebook page instead. :-) nn8 & 9 I see a lot of happening on Linkedin.nnGood read!

  • http://www.smartsolutions.ie/blog/ Elaine Rogers

    I had set up my profile some years ago and worked on it progressively over the years. I have not engaged in groups as much as I should, and got annoyed by the constant tweeting on LinkedIn. Even people I highly respect are doing it (my twitter acc is linked also, but I only tweet once a day or so from that acc, and is normally stuff related to my business, not social tweets, as I keep them separate in another twitter account).nLuckily I have never been spammed on LinkedIn, yet!nnOne thing that annoys me is people with no other connection, request to connect to me as a friend, that particular annoys me as I love and respect my friends, and they are encroaching into that space. Anyone of interest to me, I will message them, asking why they wanted to connect and to meet in person. It’s good research if nothing else.nnGreat pointers there for future reference Niall, thanks!

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