After Action Reviews are integral components of the emergency management planning process and are tools that businesses can use to evaluate a team’s experience with handling a crisis. After Action Reviews can be used to evaluate a business’ response to any emergency event, from I.T. disruptions to disease outbreaks and natural disasters.
An After-Action Review will allow your organisation to deduce what worked well during the response and what didn’t, allowing pre-existing plans to be altered to ensure that your team improves their response skills and is better equipped to handle future incidents.
The structure of an After-Action Review centers itself around the four following key questions:
- What was supposed to happen?
- What actually happened?
- What went well and why?
- What can be improved and how?
When should businesses consider implementing After-Action Reviews?
An After-Action Review is not only important for crisis and emergency planning, but should be made a priority consideration for businesses. After-Action Reviews are best performed as close as possible to the time that the crisis incident or event occurred. The time to pick apart what happened and reduce the risk of members forgetting vital aspects of the incident as time goes on, is while the event is still fresh in the minds of everyone involved.
Who is involved in the process?
It is important that every person involved in responding to the crisis event is involved in the After-Action Review process, no matter how insignificant one may feel their role was. Every team member has a voice that should be valued and will have contributions to make, no matter how great or small, that could have impacts on takeaway messages of the session for others, giving your organisation the knowledge required to improve its crisis and or emergency response plans in tangible ways. Employing an outside facilitator such as Resilient Services to conduct an After-Action Review offers a business many advantages, particularly as having an independent facilitator can help encourage participation from all team members while also maintaining neutrality.
What can you expect when consulting with Resilient Services?
The team at Resilient Services has facilitated numerous After Action Reviews for both government departments and ASX Top 100 companies. Our team can facilitate an After-Action Review and create a welcoming and positive environment for your organisation that supports an open and honest discussion, the expression of new ideas and possible solutions whilst maintaining objectivity throughout the process.
After-Action Review facilitation will involve our team conducting a series of interviews with the members of your organisation who were involved in responding to the crisis incident. This crucial information will allow us to provide your organisation with a comprehensive report containing interview data, analysis, insights and actionable recommendations for your business to consider employing.
Want to discover more about how Resilient Services can help your business facilitate an effective After-Action Review? Contact us today to find out more, and see how we can help your business to become stronger, smarter and more secure.
