After Action Reviews at the World Health Organisation (video)

Here is an interesting video from the WHO about the use of various methods for debrief and the collection of new knowledge and lessons learned.

 

The video describes four types of review, which they apply to health responses and emergencies, and they use the term After Action Review as a generic cover name for all 4 processes. These are described as follows:

• "Debrief AAR" takes less than half a day, and focuses on the actions of a single team. This is closest to the classic military After Action Review which was first developed at platoon level
• A "Working Group AAR" lasts 3 days, and covers larger responses including multiple functions. These are facilitated events, and at Knoco we describe these as Retrospects.
• A "Key Informant Interview AAR" consists of a series of one-on-one interviews with people involved in the response. They use this for complex events, in-depth analysis, and for when you cant get people together for 3 days. This process is close to the Learning History process. 
• A "Mixed method format AAR" mixes these approaches, and is used for AARs of complex responses. This takes a lot of time and resources, and the KM team has to synthesis and integrate all the responses. The last one of these I was involved in (not for the WHO) took half a year to complete, and would only be used for major projects.

WHO has a guidance booklet for these events, and provides in-house training for facilitators.