Part 4. You will hear part of a lecture about a project evaluation method called the After Action Review process. First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40. Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.

In the last lecture, we looked at managing a project to completion. Today, we're going to be looking at a way of judging just how successful your project has been. It's called the After Action Review process. A typical project review is completed long after the project is finished, and so it's too late to change the outcome. Wouldn't it be better to evaluate it along the way so you can learn from your mistakes at each stage and improve on them? It was for this reason that the army devised the After Action Review process as a way for everyone to learn quickly from experiences in the field.

Okay, so what are the benefits of using an After Action Review? Firstly, it's not just limited to very large or very formal projects, but is useful for all sorts of things. For example, you may want to use it to debrief following a staff meeting or any other regular operational function. In the same manner, it's an extremely effective tool to use following a safety incident and can reveal important lessons so that accidents can be avoided in the future. So you can see that this would definitely be a positive step for any business. An added benefit of the review is that because the focus is on learning, it really improves communication within working groups.

So let's have a look at what an After Action Review is. It's a structured session or meeting that does the following. It focuses on the resulting outcomes and the reasons for these. It encourages active participation among the team, and very importantly, emphasizes how vital it is for the team to trust one another.

Here are some of the key elements to remember for when you're conducting an After Action Review. Where possible, it's really good to have an external person to facilitate the process. This helps to direct the discussion and can also prevent a stronger member of the review from dominating the others. Make sure that you encourage active involvement. Often, shy members won't say anything, so one way to encourage them to get involved is to ask people to put their comments in writing. If they aren't given the opportunity to do this, they may be intimidated by other members of the group.

Another key element is to be aware of the type of questions you ask. In order to make sure that participants don't search for what they think is the perfect answer, always ask open questions. For example, “What would you do differently next time?”

Ensure that every member of the team has the chance to speak. It's also important to make sure you write down the specific recommendations made by everyone. But don't forget to pass this information on to non-participating team leaders so that they, too, can learn from the experience. This is how After Action Reviews contribute to organization-wide learning and improvement. However, if no one follows up on these recommendations, then the process is wasted. You should also ensure that the ideas from the After Action Review are incorporated into your business by organizing staff training around them. Finally, the last thing you want is to find that you don't get through everything because you've been talking too much, so make sure you keep a constant eye on the time. An After Action Review is not something that you should ever plan on conducting in 2 sessions. Now, before we go on to look at the next type of project review…

That is the end of Part 4. You now have 45 seconds to check your answers to Part 4.