So how did you do? Really.  No "nicey nicey" banal comments please on how it was "great". What really worked - and why? And what really didn't work - and why not? What role did you have? In the success? In the failures?

After a project or an event, it's rare that anyone, either individually or as a team, sits down to reflect on what has unfolded.

Ironically, the learning from an event comes primarily from the debrief rather than from the event itself. That's worth repeating because it is so profound and so often overlooked: the learning from an event comes primarily from the debrief rather than from the event itself.

It's a delicate art to conduct a retrospective that's powerful and useful and not a destructive critique. In this newsletter we look at the After Action Review, a simple yet powerful process the US Army created to learn from their experiences.

Do you know anyone who could learn more from their experiences? Would they enjoy Outside the Lines? Please forward this (in its entirety please, using the link at the end of the newsletter) to anyone else you think might be interested. This community grows with your help. As a thank you, I'll donate 10 cents for every subscriber to The Nature Conservancy Canada. You can check out the great work they do at www.natureconservancy.ca.

You may also reprint any part of Outside the Lines in your newsletters and message boards providing you include full authorship, copyright, and subscription information.

Michael Bungay Stanier
Principal, Box of Crayons

It's not what you do, it's what you do after you've done it

Most of us don't bother with a post-event analysis. But even when we do, they can be painfully horrible affairs: a combination of passive-aggressive politeness with no one willing to mention the "dead moose" (or "dead elephant" or "dead kangaroo", depending on your country of origin) that is in the room. (For those unfamiliar with the phrase, we're talking about the thing that's big and rotten and getting in the way of everything).

An After Action Review (AAR) is focused primarily on learning and building community. It is founded on two related principles:

• This is not to judge success or failure (and hence apportion blame) but rather the focus is on what can be learned for moving forward.
  
  
• There's a belief (what Norman Kerth calls the Prime Directive) that regardless of what's discovered, the participants understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.
  

1. What did you intend?

• This can be a simple restatement of your objectives. What were you trying to achieve?

2. What happened?

• This is useful for just getting a sense of what really happened. You can rest assured that your perspective of events is only one of the versions.
  
• The objective here is to collect both "the facts" (such as costs, number of people involved, figures, etc) and differing opinions on what worked and didn't work, what circumstances influenced what happened, and other factors.
  
• When commenting on others' roles, capture specific behavioural events (what they did, what they said) rather than your conclusion about what they did (X did a poor job because...).
  

3. What can we learn about it?

• There will be different levels of learning here, from the very specific ("don't wear Brand X socks - they give you blisters") to the more abstract ("this project wasn't close enough to my life purpose for me to be motivated").
  
• Don't forget to ask here "what did we do well that we need to discuss or else it will be forgotten?" It's very easy to jump to "the mistakes". It's most powerful to start with what's been working.
  
• Capture also "what still puzzles us?" You won't be able to figure everything out. Be explicit about what it is that still is a mystery.

4. What should we do differently next time?

• This is powerful because it plants seeds for the "next time" conversation. Without these seeds, we default back to a collective memory of "this is how we do things around here" which most often does not capitalize on the collected wisdom.

5. What should we do now?

• There may well be actions to take right now: things to do, people to connect with.
  
• As with all actions, set up accountability: what will be done, by whom and by when.

Something to Practice:

Look back on a recently completed project or event. It might be a family holiday. It might be a project at work. It might be a date with your girlfriend or boyfriend. Thinking about what happened, write down your answers to these five questions:

What did you intend?
What actually happened?
What did you learn?
What will you do differently in the future?
What should you do now?

If you're feeling bolder, invite the others involved in the process and have the conversation with them as well.


Want to learn more? Here are some useful AAR resources:

Retrospectives - a website devoted to growing the practice of looking back to move forward http://www.retrospectives.com/

Project Retrospectives, Norman Kerth [Canada  US  UK]

Surfing Chaos. A free pdf download on the 6 secrets to a successful AAR.

Norway hoorah!

I'm delighted to announce that I'll be speaking at the European ICF Conference in May in Tonsberg, Norway. I'll be speaking on the eleven levers coaches can use to make their business model really zing. Fancy a Nordic romp? Check out the conference site here.

Get Unstuck and Get Going - the book

Get Unstuck and Get Going will be formally launched at the Norway coaches' conference in May. That means you're running out of time to sign up (in a no obligation sort of way) for the pre-publication specials at www.GetUnstuckAndGetGoing.com.

Meantime, the pre-publication praise continues to roll in:

"I was sceptical at first, but boy was I proved wrong. This is an inspiring, fun, stimulating and challenging tool to push your thinking way beyond normal limits. I love the way you can use it to address issues in totally different ways - using emotions and feelings as well as thoughts and ideas."
Sally Bonneywell
Director, Executive Development and Talent Management, GlaxoSmithKline

"Sometimes tools are invented that provoke applications way beyond previous ways of doing things. Vise grips are like that, and so is duct tape. Bungay Stanier has provided coaches and their clients with a tool that takes us beyond the linear approach of most books. He makes use of our human capacity to create meaning, and he stimulates that creativity with profound wisdom. Get Unstuck and Get Going is a tool I will reach for over and over, not just when I am stuck, but also when I want to get new ideas or spark a different way of looking at things. I will recommend it both to new and experienced coaches as a way of expanding their repertoire, and to clients as a portable coach."
Linda J. Page, PhD, ACPC
President, Adler School of Professional Coaching Inc.

"There are no canned solutions on how to get unstuck here. This tool's unique format means you generate your own ideas and create your own action plan."
Roly Morris
President & CEO, KremeKo Inc (dba Krispy Kreme Doughnuts)

People love that this tool combines the deepest principles of creativity and coaching, and it's a source of infinitely renewable possibilities. Because of its unique structure, you can generate 125,000 different possible perspectives with this book to any challenge you might have - and then work through the Action Acceleration(TM) Sheet to commit to doing something about it.

Need to get selling?

My friend Nicki Weiss is the best sales coach I know. Her bottom line: she guarantees improved sales performance when sales managers and leaders adopt a coach approach. She is an internationally recognized Certified Professional Sales Management Coach, Master Trainer, and workshop leader. Since 1992, Nicki has trained, certified, and/or coached more than 6,000 business executives, sales managers and salespeople in numerous market sectors. Her style is fun and challenging, grounded in common sense while focused on results. She writes a great free newsletter called Something for Nothing, which you can sign up for at www.nickiweiss.com.






Three things to blow your mind

A Cambridge University geneticist believes the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.

A US power plant is being built that will be 90% fuelled by chicken litter (whatever "chicken litter" is).

The World Conservation Union has listed 15,589 species that are now known to be in a perilous position, including an eighth of all birds, a quarter of all mammals and a third of amphibians.

If you're interested in similar "world shifting" stories, subscribe to the Arlington Institute's free newsletter, Future Edition here.






Michael Bungay Stanier helps people, teams and organizations to get unstuck, create possibilities, and have more fun. You can find out more at www.boxofcrayons.biz or you can contact him directly at Michael@BoxOfCrayons.biz or +1 (416) 532-1322.

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