I secretly love the moment when the air stewardess utters those magic words:
“as we prepare for take-off, please turn off all electronic devices…”
Actually, I think the whole plane breathes a collective sigh of relief. Fifteen minutes of enforced separation from the electronic world of work.

From SoySource357 on Flickr
Fifteen minutes at the downtime oasis between the instant your iPhone/Blackberry goes off, and the moment your laptop is allowed to be switched on. We’re so always-on, info-stimulated, response-charged that it’s a bit of a shock to the system. Once I’ve leafed through the in-flight magazine and perused the safety card, I confess I sometimes find myself nodding off!
Fifteen minutes. That’s the time typically allocated for After Action Reviews (AARs), at least for informal AARs, pioneered by the US Army and now a widely used knowledge management approach.
Let’s take a deeper look at this classic, simple process and see why it provides such a welcome quarter of an hour of reflection and learning for a team.
Firstly, the name can create a level of confusion. Informal AARs take place immediately after an event or activity and are designed to provide a safe, honest, space for a team to review performance and identify the learning. In that respect, they are really a tool for learning-whilst-doing. You wouldn’t use this kind of AAR to review a major project in order to generate detailed narrative, lessons and recommendations for the next team. There are other KM methods in your toolbox for those situations – such as Project Reviews, Retrospects and Sensemaking techniques.
The climate for an AAR is important. The US Army describe those fifteen minutes as a “rank-free zone”. University College London’s “Learning Hospital” (to be featured in a future edition of Inside Knowledge), which is training hundreds of its staff as AAR facilitators describe the technique as making it possible to “speak the truth to power”. The ubiquity of AARs in the hospital make it safe for a junior technician to comment on and challenge the actions of the most eminent surgeon, because everybody understands the need for a climate of honesty when patients’ lives are at stake.
Having clarified the name and the climate, let’s take a look at the four simple questions which comprise an AAR. Simple enough to be remembered without a crib-sheet, and familiar enough that people know exactly where they are in the process.
Question one: “What was supposed to happen?” focuses on the facts This may sound surprising, but sometimes it can be difficult to even get agreement on the answers to this question!
Question two: “What actually happened?” – the US Army calls it “ground truth” – again, this is purely a statement of facts about what happened – not an exchange of opinions. Sometimes there are unexpected, positive things which happen in addition to the expected outcome – note these down too, as you might want to repeat those elements in the future.
Question three: “Why was there a difference?”. This is the time when the team can move from stating facts to giving their opinion as to the reasons for any differences; the facilitator uses the time wisely to ensure that contributions are made from as many team members as possible, and discussed where necessary.
Question four: “What can we learn from this?”. This is the most important question, as it is the one most likely to identify what needs to change. It moves the team from reflection to action, and make a difference to the next time they attempt a similar task.
So that’s it. Four simple questions, addressed rapidly by the team with the facilitator (a team member) capturing a brief record on a flipchart to keep the focus on shared opinions and actions. All in all, a straightforward technique. The power of AARs comes in the structure; the slowing-down effect of the four questions. Let’s face it, as intelligent professionals, we like to think we have a pretty good idea about what the learning points are, even before we’ve discussed it. AARs are designed to stop people just like us from bypassing steps i, ii and iii and jumping to conclusions as to what the learning was, without having verified that there is agreement about what actually happened.
In our always-on world, where we re-tweet things around the globe before we’ve even read them, and connect with people we barely know – fifteen minutes to slow down, reflect and think – together – is invaluable.
Now… where did that duty-free magazine go?
Taken from the Consulting Collison column in the next edition of Inside Knowledge
March 3, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Like the post Chris, thanks for sending me the link.
The AAR process is used quite extensively in a number of areas within BT. When I’ve seen them used in the past, you’re 4th question is often broken down into 2 parts: ‘What did we learn?’ which brings out the actual lessons and also ‘How do we make sure this knowledge is passed on?’ which encourages those involved to think about how to best disseminate the information and to who it needs to be told. That’s the most important aspect of the review. Often they are just placed in a document and shelved, but really the power of them comes by passing on the knowledge to others.
I’ve also seen them recorded as stories which is quite an interesting way of doing them, and certainly means they are more exciting to read. The Heath Brothers make this case in their book which is all about how to make things ‘sticky’. http://www.madetostick.com/
The trick with air travel is to put your smartphone into flight mode and then you never have to disconnect!
March 5, 2011 at 11:31 pm
Thanks Matt – wish you hadn’t mentioned the flight mode thing though…. :O)
I’ve no problem with asking your fifth question (“how do we make sure this knowledge is passed on?”) to conclude an AAR, although the US Army would say that the primary purpose of an informal AAR (the 15 minute variety) is to provide immediate learning for the team.
They would use a more formal, structured and longer process to elicit lessons and recommendations for wider use. Your 5th question yields even more value after a deeper review with richer outputs.
For me, AARs are part of a wider learning loop – learning before, during and after – which require organisations to look at the lifecycle of lessons, and the “chokes” in the system which prevent the knowledge “from being passed on” as you say. Often its the demand-side of the equation where the biggest weakness lies.
A bit more on this here: https://chriscollison.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/taking-lessons-back-to-school/
and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb2I0_FZuac
Cheers,
Chris
March 4, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Thanks for the refresher on AAR Chris! But managing the conversations during AAR is difficult. I had bad experience using the tool. What happened was, conversations started to take the wrong turn on step 3. There are two sides to every story and having a facilitator doesn’t help because he/she doesn’t know enough context to intervene. Another issue would be: How much details that we should talk about during AAR? for example: During my AAR session, we talked about: why the video cam didn’t work last-minute? (step 3). possible answer: the person-in-charge didn’t do a proper check before using the video cam. You see what I mean? the AAR session turned into an ugly debate.
March 5, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Hi Roan,
I think AARs become easier and less political when they are used more frequently. People begin to realise that they are intended to help a team review and improve their performance, rather than provide a forum for blaming others. It really helps for the facilitator to set this context – especially for the first time – and emphasis the purpose, and who the learning is for. When they become more of a habit, they are less likely to be hijacked, or get too personal. They get better over time.
You’re right that sometimes AARs can focus on unnecessary levels of detail. Unlike the US Army, or a surgical team, some of the things we end up reviewing aren’t life-and-death.
Questions 1 and 2 can through up a bit of a grocery-list of “supposed-to-happens” and “actually happeneds”. Not unusual for someone to say “we were supposed to break for coffee & biscuits for 15 minutes” and “…but there were no biscuits”. (facilitator sighs!).
As a facilitator, I’d think about three things here:
i) Is this activity really worthy of an AAR, or would I be better “keeping my gunpowder dry” and introducing it for a more complex or higher-value event?
ii) When you move to question 3, there’s no need to tackle the issues in the order they were raised in question 2. So if your “grocery list” begins with missing biscuits, defective flipchart pens and 5-minute overruns, then you might want to start the discussion around question 3 with a more meaty issue, to prevent investing too much precious time discussing the price of digestives! (It can happen!) Save those items until later.
iii) If you do find the team getting hung up on biscuits (or video-camera) issues, then check in with the team with a question like “We have limited time here, do we want to keep our attention on this item or are there other differences and learning points that we should move on to?”
Hope this helps. Easy to come up with these when you’re not in the middle of a review!
Cheers,
Chris
March 8, 2011 at 3:15 am
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