Blog
How does After Action Review increase staff engagement?
Have you noticed how some people start to get ready to go home well before their official clock-off time? Every day of the week, the cup washing, desk cleaning, pencil-pot tidying begins and is followed by a long visit to the bathroom and then the coat is put on so...
W.H.O. launches new guidance on After Action Review to increase system learning
The scale of the After Action Reviews (AARs) conducted after a meningitis outbreak in Nigeria or a cyclone in Mozambique is much larger than any of the AARs I have been involved in during my career in the NHS and corporate life. Taking days to complete and involving...
Shifting the blame culture to a learning culture.
Laughter is not often something you would expect to hear at a conference about Patient Safety but it was an uncomfortable type of laughter, not genuine mirth. It happened last month when I was at the Patient Safety Learning Conference in London and Professor Ted...
A bias that gets in the way of team learning
Despite all the research evidence in support of After Action Review (AAR), we sometimes find that people don’t see why holding AARs might be useful in their organisation. This lack of understanding isn’t about AAR itself, but much more about an innate cognitive bias....
After Action Review and the English Rugby Team
I’m guessing that lots of you will have been cheering loudly, like i was, as we watched the English ruby team beat Australia on Saturday. Afterwards as we got on with our weekends, slightly happier than before, the England squad will have started preparing for their...
Kindergarten and After Action Review
What connects After Action Review and the teaching of Fredrich Froebel, the man who coined the term “Kindergarten”? The end of the summer is an important time for many families as A level results arrive and young people begin the next stage of life at university or...
Small is beautiful
An account of an After Action Review from an ITU demonstrates how change doesn’t have to be big to be valuable
AAR Calling It
You may have read in the past* that I spent about 6 weeks on exercise in Canada with my Regiment. There is a very structured approach to the timetabling on such an exercise: the participants complete large live firing exercises and then undertake several mission sets...
AAR – Does It Work?
I would like to finish my current run on AAR blogs with a short story which I hope will show you how powerful it is and the benefits of both applying the system and embedding it throughout your organisation. It is one of the many times that AAR has been of...
Loving the Unexpected
When we return to work in January we enjoy swapping stories of our Christmas holidays with our colleagues. But have you noticed that they only get interesting when something unexpected happens? When Chris responded to my question “How was Christmas?” with a “We did...
Learning from the Boston Marathon Bombing
Like many of you I watched over 40 thousand people run the London Marathon last weekend. It was fascinating to see the mix of backgrounds and abilities all attempting the 26.2 mile run and all with their own personal reasons. This reminded me the marathon in Boston...
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