After Action Report

An After Action Report (or AAR) is any form of retrospective analysis on a given sequence of goal oriented actions previously undertaken, generally by the author itself.

The two principal purposes of AARs are the Literary Form, intended for recreational use, and the Analytical AAR, exercised as part of a process of performance evaluation and improvement, while in most cases AARs are a combination of both.

History

First AARs were developed by army generals. One of the first and best examples of AARs is Julius Caesar’s “Commentaries on the Gallic war”.

Analytical AARs

Analytical AARs are formal documents, intended to serve aids to performance evaluation and improvement, by registering situation-response interactions, analysing critical procedures, determining their effectiveness and efficiency, and proposing adjustments and recommendations.

Objectives

Analytical AARs have three central objectives:

* Identifying problematic issues and needs for improvement
* Proposing measures to counteract problematic elements
* Obtaining “lessons learned”¹

Structure

#Overview
#Goals and objectives
#Analysis of outcomes
#Analysis of the performance shown on critical tasks
#Summary
#Recommendations¹

Footnotes

# [http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/29/e4/a8.pdf Lessons Learned From School Crises and Emergencies Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2007]

External links

* [http://transit-safety.volpe.dot.gov/training/Archived/EPSSeminarReg/CD/Documents/OHIO_DOT/SEMSAFTERACTION.pdf Guide for Analytical AARs Implementation]
* [http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=282740 Europa Universalis III (Compendium of Literary AARs)]