In their 2023 HBR article, Angus Fletcher, Preston Cline, and Matthew Hoffman revealed a better approach to conducting After-Action Reviews than organisations were currently taking. They noticed these reviews focused predominantly on diving into solutions before exploring the problems.

Reviewers immediately jumped to conclusions and ignored the narrative, driving poor processes and inadequate systems.

Before we reveal how to master after-action reviews, let’s look at a typical example that surfaces in schools more often than it should.

The Quest for Strategic Success

Example Grammar College is about to complete its five-year strategic plan. It’s its fifth and final year, and council members are impatient to set its next short-term agenda.

Fortunately, the annual strategy day is less than a month away. The principal and her leadership team are scurrying to compile their analysis of the future. Feverishly preparing for a barrage of directors' queries, they arm themselves with demographic forecasts, financial estimates, and economic projections to set the tone for discussion.

The anticipation of a new strategy is palpable.

The flurry of excitement is so contagious that no one has considered how the current plan fared. That is until one junior executive asks the meddlesome question, “Are we okay that many of our objectives failed to materialise?”

There’s always one.

How Do Schools Unlock Strategic Success?

A common problem for many schools is taking the time to review the strategic plan.

Why?

There are several reasons, but the typical response is the desire to move on and avoid the blame game. Unsurprisingly, no one wants to take the heat for a goal that struggled to gain traction.

If a review is conducted, it’s undertaken from an ostensible perspective—ignoring the failures and focusing on the positives.

So, imagine if that was the response taken by Boeing when a plane falls out of the sky or the local ER when someone dies on the operating table because there was a mix-up with organ donors.

These organisations conduct after-action reviews as BAU.

Why would a school want to conduct an AAR on the strategic plan when it’s not critical to the life or death of a random citizen?

Probably because dissecting outcomes is the most remarkable mechanism for understanding in a learning organisation. Hopefully, schools in the 21^st century are drinking heavily from the learning organisation Kool-Aid.

What is an After-Action Review

Initially developed by the US Army, an After-Action Review is a formal process for determining where actions went wrong when they should have gone right and where actions went right when they weren’t expected to be as successful. They’ve been regarded as “one of the most organisational learning methods yet devised.”

It’s based on a series of probing questions that seek to learn how systems, processes, and people affect the outcome of a specific action. The four key questions are:

·         What did we expect,

·         What was the reality,

·         Why was there a variance between expectations and reality and

·         What should be changed for next time.

You'd be correct if you compared this to a cut-down Gap Analysis – current state, future state, and gap between the two.

How Can Schools Master an After-Action Review

Todd Henshaw at Wharton College argues that while AARs are often used to measure performance, their real genius serves as a catalyst for culture change.

Sure, an AAR is applicable as a pro forma technique for reviewing events. But when it becomes a living practice within a school—that is, when the process is embedded in employees' psyche—the benefits can rapidly outweigh the process.

How can schools achieve that with their strategic plans?

1.      Focus on learning, not blaming

The point of an after-action review is to conduct a surgical post-mortem on the event. It’s to discern the key moments or decisions that set the strategy on the wrong trajectory. The issue arises, however, when individuals are blamed for their apparent failures. Naturally, those team members become defensive, and emotions cloud the conversation.

This is not helpful because it directs the discussion from the valuable lesson and sabotages the surgical approach.

 Once AARs become commonplace in a school, those responsible are more likely to take personal accountability. Naming and shaming do not improve team performance.

 2.      Spend most of your available AAR time focusing on Question 2

As a learning organisation, the key issues can only be discovered by listening to the narrative. The whole narrative. The eyewitness accounts from those directly involved. Allow the team to share, corroborate, and support each other but demand honesty and transparency.

Why were those goals chosen? How were they resourced? In what ways did the team commit to them? Open-ended questions such as these focus on the essentials but allow the team to discuss openly their perceptions of the event.

 3.      Be data-informed

Anecdotal evidence is valuable, but supporting opinions and decisions with data can add immense understanding to a situation.

Facts have an uncanny ability to provide insight and clarity into the discussion. As an example, perhaps the data surrounding the activity changed while the narrative didn’t. Granted, it’s not ideal, but it may reveal the “A-ha” moment where the team gets it and learns for future strategy.

The data should illuminate which processes are worth keeping, tweaking, or replacing.

 4.      Ensure mandatory participation

After-action reviews should not be optional. Whether it be the board of directors, the leadership team, or a performance team, turning up to review the strategic plan is non-negotiable. Team members should feel safe to express themselves honestly and be willing to challenge others, even if it’s a peer or upline manager.

The benefit of mandatory participation is the ability to hear from different perspectives. Every voice is valuable and should be elevated as a key to the review's success.

 5.      Consistent application

Harking back to Henshaw’s “living practice”, consistent application of AARs is paramount. Understandably, some might expect a review to be confined to the end of the strategic plan. Yet, as a learning organisation, it makes more sense that an embedded practice happens due to consistent application.

Therefore, teams should regularly employ an AAR for each activity they undertake as they progress toward their goal.

 6.      Use a facilitator to keep the conversation neutral

Finally, attempting to facilitate an AAR without it being embedded practice could be akin to negotiating a starving dog off a meat truck. It could be done, but it’s unlikely to end well.

Conclusion

An After-Action Review is designed to improve future performance based on learning from the past. Take the time to engage stakeholders and understand the entire narrative that allowed a process or system to operate.