After Action Reviews

The term after action review (AAR) refers to a specific type of work meeting in which employees discuss, actively learn, and attempt to make constructive sense of a recent event during which they collaborated. The purpose of an AAR is to bring together members of a work group that may have been dispersed during an event, so that they can learn retrospectively from each other through active communication, active listening, and interpretation. An AAR is commonly used after a specific event, and the group tends to discuss what went well, what went poorly, what almost went poorly, and what can be learned as the group moves forward and faces future analogous incidents together. These meetings are intended to enhance group performance and safety culture as ...