After-Action Review Example and Learning Record

An after-action review is a conversation about the gap between an intended event and the event that actually happened. Its useful output is a small learning record: what to keep, what to change, and what remains uncertain. You can use it after a shared project, a presentation or an ordinary activity you organized with someone else.

Wharton's introduction to after-action reviews describes comparing plans, execution, explanations and future adjustments. The example below uses that general approach. Its evidence columns and follow-up record are original; the people and event are fictional.

Keep observations and explanations in different places

Mira remembers waiting for Dev to finish registration. Dev remembers waiting for Mira to find the drawing paper. An unhelpful report would select the most confident account and call it the cause. A useful record can preserve both accounts without deciding that both are equally well supported.

The distinction matters because a proposed change can be sensible even when the whole causal story is unresolved. Labeling supplies is directly connected to the observed confusion. Blaming the registration volunteer would require evidence the group does not have.

Four questions to keep the conversation moving

1. Intention: what result had we agreed to seek?
2. Observation: what did the available records show?
3. Explanation: what may account for the difference, and how sure are we?
4. Next attempt: what should we retain or change, and how will we check it?

The questions organize a conversation. They do not require a single agreed explanation when the evidence cannot support one.

Conduct the review without demanding a verdict

Invite each participant to add an observation before discussing solutions. Ask what record supports it and whether anyone remembers it differently. Write an absent person's perspective as missing, rather than guessing it. Participation in this informal exercise should be voluntary; private comments need not become shared meeting notes.

Review what went as intended too. The closing activity is worth recording because a redesign could accidentally remove it. “Keep the closing activity” is more precise than “the second half was good.” If an explanation is uncertain, ask whether it is worth collecting better information next time. Some gaps can simply remain gaps.

This record does not promise an on-time start. It specifies a change and the observation that will help assess it. The photograph checks preparation; participant questions check a different part of the problem. Neither should be substituted for the other.

An after-action review asks what can be learned after an event. A decision journal preserves what you knew and expected before choosing. Use the earlier record as evidence when available; do not rewrite it to fit the eventual result.

Let participants correct the shared record before treating it as agreed. A personal reflection can stay separate from that shared account. For private observations between events, LUVIRE's journal guide offers an optional format; no number calculation is needed for this review.