An After action review is a Conversation for clarity used to quickly debrief a situation and engage in First-order learning and Second-order learning prior to facing a similar situation again.
The 4 questions should be answered in sequence.
- What was supposed to happen?
- What actually happened?
- Why were there differences?
- What can we do next time differently?
Since an after action review is designed to be carried out quickly in the field1 the time for deep fact-finding can be limited. Question 1-3, are at risk of Ungrounded assessment over True assertion.
Questions 3 and 4 are where learning occurs but it is more important to address the Second-order learning whys as the First-order learning whys, as described in Strengthening After Action Reviews through Double-loop learning.