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Note: We have permission from
many publishers to allow single downloads for educational use of many of our articles. If you intend to distribute multiple copies within your organization, contact the publisher to purchase appropriate reprints.
OpenView Partners eBook, May 2011 [download] [read at OpenView site]
Whether you are involved with agile development or not, the best way to ensure continuous improvement in your organization is to reflect and learn from past work. This discipline can help you gain better insight into overall performance, identify process impediments, solve lingering problems, develop a team culture. Includes sections by Charles Parry and Jeff Sutherland (cofounder of Scrum).
INC. Magazine, March 2009 [read at INC site]
After reading about AARs four years ago, leaders at MFA decided to bake them into every customer engagement, no matter how small. This article describes the applications in this highly successful 100-employee accounting and consulting firm, and the value they create.
“The Army's After Action Review (AAR) is arguably one of the most successful organizational learning methods
yet devised. Yet, most every corporate effort to graft this truly innovative practices into their culture has failed – because, again and again, people reduce the living practice of
AAR's to a sterile technique. As Marilyn Darling and Charles Parry show, the crucial difference lies in the synergy between culture and method” — Peter Senge
Grantmakers for Effective Organizations RESULTS Conference keynote by Marilyn Darling, May 2007
[download] [GEO website]
Grantmakers often over-invest in the capture and dissemination component of the knowledge equation and under-invest in the weak link - making sure that we apply what we're learning.
—in The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems - January 2007, chapter [Publisher (BKconnection.com)] [buy chapter reprint]
This updated edition of the classic bestseller features profiles of sixty-one change methods, each by their originators or foremost practitioners. Chapters outline distinctive aspects of a method, answers frequently asked questions, and provides case studies and references.
Reflections-The SoL Journal on Knowledge, Learning, and Change; Volume 8, 2007 [download] [Publisher (SOLonline.org)]
How do you bring great minds together around complex challenges? SoL researcher-consultants Marilyn Darling and Charles Parry recognized that groups need a method in order to effectively capture learning that occurs over multiple events. EL Maps™ offer a simple and powerful approach to recognize patterns and come up with systemic solutions. As bringing bright people together can be like “herding cats,” the EL Map™ guides groups through iterative rounds of action and thinking toward actionable theory that meets the test of application grounded in real contexts.
Business Week July 2006
[download pdf] [Publisher (businessweek.com)]
Darling and Parry brought the CEO and CFO of a utility company to the Army's National Training Center, and helped these executives implement the after-action review process throughout the company. An example of a win - restoration time for day-to-day power failures improved by 40%.
Harvard Business Review - High-Performance Organization Issue - July 2005
[Summary page]
[reprints from publisher (harvardbusiness.org]
[request a complimentary copy from authors]
On the face of it, the After Action Review is the simplest of practices. A leader gathers the team after a significant action, compares what they intended and actually achieved, and asks what they want to sustain and improve going forward. What could be simpler? Marilyn Darling, Charles Parry and Joe Moore describe the AAR practices of a nimble, winning organization, the U.S. Army's Opposing Force. They then review the experiences of a range of companies attempting to build “Lessons Learned.” Key insight: Companies that succeeded did not check-box AARs - they shifted their thinking so that AAR cycles became the way they tied together leading, learning and execution.
Reflections-The
SoL Journal on Knowledge, Learning, and Change; Volume 5, 2003
[download]
[Publisher (solonline.org)]
Efforts to embed “learning while doing” as a daily business
practice paid off for DTE Energy during and after the blackout of 2003.
Darling, Meador and Patterson describe how early efforts to embed the After Action Review
cycle as a working habit eventually led to broad adoption and measurable
results in this leading energy company.
The Systems Thinker, October 2001
[download]
[Publisher (thesystemsthinker.com)]
Unfortunately, the After Action Review has been widely misunderstood and underestimated in its power to transform results in organizations.
Charles Parry and Marilyn Darling show that the After Action Review cycle is an excellent example
of Emergent Learning, then describe its effective use by three corporations,
and offer dos and don’ts for adopting the AAR cycle as a process
to improve performance.
[purchase complete study]
[read executive summary]
[download exec summary]
A major update to the literature on AARs, Darling and Parry's 40-page research report based on their extensive fieldwork. Includes a discussion of why the AAR had been slow to catch on in the business world, and outlines common misconceptions about how AARs work.
“
Darling's and Parry's study can help corporate leaders at
all levels grasp the essence of the AAR, so they can help it incubate
in their own culture.” — Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline
The Systems Thinker,
May 1999 [download]
[Publisher (thesystemsthinker.com)]
“Learning” holds many social connotations
that severely limit its application outside of traditional education and training.
Darling and Parry provide an overview of the core principles of Emergent Learning, contrast it with problem-solving and classroom training, and show how to shift the mindset about when and how teams can engage in learning.
in Organizational Learning At Work, 1998
[download] [Publisher (pegasuscom.com)]
There is a strong case for propagating best practices across sub-units of organizations. Yet efforts to do this commonly meet with very limited success. This chapter describes some of the stumbling blocks and offers five principles for propagating practices across organizational units.
Knowledge Management webarticle describes how After Action Review practices were
integrated into Harley-Davidson’s manufacturing processes at their Kansas City plant.
by Steve Barth in Knowledge Management Magazine, 2001[download]
How Knowledge management plays a central role in the U.S. armed forces transformation today. The introduction of action learning by Army Chief of Staff in World War II, in order to introduce modern ideas of business management into the military.
Guidance on the business application of the practices of the world's premier learning organization, the US Army's OPFOR, described in "Learning In The Thick Of It" (HBR August 2005 - see above)
Using the AAR to create a culture of accountability and continually raise the bar on performance by learning through execution.
Eight examples of challenges and organizational learning practices in a range of organizations.
Organizational Learning Curriculum: Hands-on training covers how to conduct pre-action briefings, AARs and cross-team knowledge-building sessions. Participating organizations (teams, groups of teams or whole units) will use their own work to practice, and will walk away with an implementable AAR design.
A half-day overview on-site delivery is also available.
How to raise the bar on performance and learning using Before and After Action Reviews - BAR-AAR - including preparation, non-negotiables, do's and don'ts, and good places to start.
The principles and practice of Emergent Learning, how EL Maps launch and support an organizational learning practice.
Walkthrough of the core principles of Emergent Learning and some of the thinking behind EL Maps.
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