How after-action reviews can boost productivity and collaboration
To improve results, you must take time to analyze what happened, why it happened, what went right, what went wrong, and how it can be done better going forward.
If you took all the complaining, blaming, and finger-pointing in the workplace and channeled it into continuous improvement, imagine how much better everybody would work together.
Even in the most successful work interactions or transactions, where you can think of lots of things that went right, there are usually some things that could have gone better.
Every time you think, “I wish I had known xyz” or “Next time we should do abc,” those are opportunities to get better. Don’t miss them. Write them down, talk them through, and use the insights to improve.
That’s what indispensable people do. They get in the habit of doing some form of an after-action review following every significant action or project. In working relationships, such a practice is the heart of continuous improvement.
Make the after-action review your standard operating procedure. Do a structured analysis and debrief of what happened, why it happened, what went right, what went wrong, and how it can be done better going forward:
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