After Action Review (AAR)

Facing a crisis situation is obviously quite challenging for an organisation as well as for individuals affected or involved. But crises are also great opportunities to learn and improve. To avoid repeating the same mistakes and to sustain good practices, improve resilience and be better prepared for the next crisis. But how to ensure this learning process actually happens? How does your organisation learn from disruption? What processes do you have in place to structurally review your crisis response?

Most of the time, once a crisis is over, we don’t want to think about what happened. Our intention is to move on as soon as possible and to resume business as usual. Worse, in some cases we blame, thinking appointing a culprit will solve the problem. Other organisations try to look back and start a review process, but this takes some time and soon the day-to-day business becomes a priority again and learning becomes secondary or even postponed. Yet, the After Action Review should start at the beginning of the crisis or at least right after dust settled to get the mots accurate data possible. Time makes people forget and more vulnerable to mental biases.

PM’s After Action Review helps your organisation to learn from any kind of crisis or disruption. Based on both qualitative and quantitative methods, document research and observations, the After Action Review leads to informed recommendations and priorities to better prepare your organisation in responding to crisis and disruptive events. Our streamlined After Action Review process ensures you focus on what matters the most and helps you spend your time, resources and people in the most effective way.

PM’s After Action Review is led by PM’s crisis management advisors who have an extensive knowledge on crisis and expertise on crisis response challenges thanks to their practical experience in the field. They carefully examine how your organisation managed the crisis by focusing at 3 main aspects: planning, anticipation, and acute response.

After Action Review

Simple process

Don’t add more complexity to crisis. Our After Action Review process is simple and accessible process, yet we take care of the entire process for you.

Neutral party

Oftentimes crisis team members or leadership are more likely to open up to a third party than their colleagues. We get to the bottom of things.

Invaluable advice

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Learning from crisis highlight real shortcomings in your crisis preparedness and response.

What to expect?

Hot debriefings in the acute phase

In the case that PM is involved for acute crisis support, a series of hot debriefings are included in our crisis response.

Qualitative data gathering in the cold phase

A series of in-depth, one-hour talks with key people within your organisation’s crisis response will give us the precise insight we need for further steps.

Document analysis

Analysis of relevant related documentation and loggings to deepen the understanding of the crisis response decision-making process.

Data processing

PM advisors label, process and cross-reference data according to PM crisis framework, resulting in invaluable learnings.

Hands-on advisory report

The end result is a to-the-point, concrete and hands-on advisory report, in which we present our advice and recommendations to improve your crisis preparedness in an efficient and effective way.

Feedback session

During an advisory session with leadership we discuss the report.

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