Organisational behaviour: Postmortem vis-à-vis AAR
Great things in business are never done by one person; they are done by a team of people
Steve Jobs
Dr Ulfat Hussain
Generally speaking postmortem refers to an examination, investigation, or process that takes place after death. Postmortem is a medical term commonly used by medical professionals. In management, postmortem refers to any examination or discussion that takes place after an event is completed. In other words, it is an analysis of an event after it has ended. In the management circle a project postmortem, also called a project retrospective, is a process for evaluating the success or failure of a projects ability to meet business goals. In Human Resource terms we call this as After Action Review (AAR). This write-up will focus on AAR alias postmortem of task completed as would be done by HR professionals.
Tahziba Hossain, manager of a team, is very fond of postmortem of any tasks so completed. She calls for meeting of the team members and allows the floor to discuss on the negative and positive points. She meticulously notes down various opinions and alternatives to do better next time. She strategises her next moves or course of action in accordance with the solutions to the challenges of the task. Her main focus is to identify: What worked well for the team and what did not work well for the team?
She uses this technique in variety of ways, the most common of which are after staff meetings or after regular operational functions. Through these basic two questions, she identifies the root causes of challenges and how to address them in order to get desired results. Once the team comes to a unanimous decision, she applies the measures in her next course of action. Tahziba believes that AAR is a process of continuous learning.
Why we should do an AAR/postmortem?
AARs provide opportunity to assess what happened and why. They are learning-focused discussions that are designed to help the team and the organisations leaders discover what to do differently. For example, when conducting organisation-wide training, you might complete an AAR after the first training session to analyse what to do better in the next session. Or, if youre changing your manufacturing process, you could do an AAR after completing the first 100 units, instead of finishing the entire run. It seeks to identify recurring activities and those that stand a challenge.
Based on the nature and size of a project, you may actually do the AAR after part or full completion of tasks. The common factor is applying the AAR process to all recurring, or repeating, events and activities, as well as those that pose a challenge.
The AAR approach supports a continuous learning culture and the desire to find and use best practices and innovative approaches.
The exercise of AARs isnt limited just for large or formal projects. For example, when a safety incident occurs, an AAR can reveal important lessons. An added benefit of the After Action Review process is improved communication and feedback within team members because the focus is on learning not blaming others. The postmortem process leads to improved understanding of team performance, and helps people think about how best to work together to produce better results.
Tips for conducting an AAR meeting:
Depending upon the nature of the project and the management styles, AARs can be done in many different ways. A few suggestions for conducting postmortem sessions are focus on why things happened; compare intended results with results actually accomplished; encourage participation of all and listen attentively to team members; respect everyones view points; allow sharing on-the-job experiences; emphasize on the value of feedback.
To make the AAR process successful, the team needs to discover for itself the lessons provided by the experience. The more open and honest the discussions are, the better the solutions. Here are some elements of an effective AAR process:
No negative criticism: The AAR does not seek to criticize negatively, or find fault. The emphasis should be on learning, so make this clear right from the start to achieve maximum involvement, openness, and honest confessions.
Interactive and participative session: Encourage participants to raise any issues without any reservation. Emphasise that its OK to disagree and that blame isnt part of the discussion. No personal attacks.
Emphasis on team performance: The AAR is not about individual performance. Look at how the team performed, and dont do blame game.
Conduct AAR ASAP: For feedback to be effective, it should be timely and immediate because it will give you more accurate description of what actually happened and what course of action must be followed. It also helps ensure that all of the team can participate.
Use a facilitator: Choose a smart neutral person who can steer the discussion. The facilitator asks questions and can often lead the discussion in such a way that it remains nonjudgmental; humor to break monotony but emphasis on thought provoking ideas. Have someone to record proceedings and minute of the meetings. Circulate the meeting minutes including recommendations to all concerned for their action.
Use of open ended Qs:
Tahziba uses open ended questions to get the exact answer. She makes it clear that there is no right or wrong answer. She normally avoids too broad questions, abstract questions. Some examples of the questions are: What was supposed to happen? What did happen? Why was there a difference? What worked well? What didnt work? Why? What would you do differently next time? How could the situation have been prevented? In your opinion, what is the ideal procedure?
Start the AAR meeting by getting team members to agree on what was supposed to happen that is the scope of work. If the original objectives were unclear, then its unlikely that the project or activity would be very successful. Once you have agreement, you can discuss actual versus intended results.
You may need to return to the objectives as you move on to what worked and what you would do differently. Sometimes its helpful to have each participant write down their ideas, and thenask everyone to share. Itallows quieter individuals to contribute.
Write the key discussion questions on a whiteboard or flipchart. This helps participants focus on the main purpose of the meeting.
Record recommendations: Write down the specific recommendations made by the team. Then forward this information to other team leaders and stakeholders. This is how AARs contribute to organization-wide learning and improvement.
Follow up and provide training: If no one follows up on the recommendations, then time spent on the process is wasted. Create a system to ensure that the ideas gathered in the AAR are incorporated into operations and training activities.
Identify training needs and provide appropriate training to team members.
Points to remember:
Postmortem or After Action Review (AAR) Process is a process of learning from your actions sooner rather than later. You finish a project, and then you study it to determine what happened. From there, you decide which processes to keep and what you will do differently next time. That may help the next project you may have used too much time and too many resources in the project being reviewed, and you could have avoided some of this if you had done a review. This helps to capture lessons learned after each milestone, and improve performance immediately.
Organisations of all types, across all industries, could benefit from an ongoing review process. With this system, critical lessons and knowledge are transferred immediately to get the most benefit.
The field unit has an opportunity to talk about what happened, and other teams can then use this experience right away. In this way, the performance of the whole organisation improves in a timely manner.
Continuous improvement helps us handle the changes that are happening around us. AARs help us keep open a steady dialogue about learning and improvement. They also allow organisations to learn and adapt, so that they can keep up with and stay ahead of change.
It is the human mind that makes change. In the words of Steve Jobs, Its not a faith in technology. Its faith in people.
The writer is a senior consultant of Pro-edge Associates Ltd, and adjunct faculty of Dhaka University.
