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Definitions notwithstanding, I tend to prefer the term 'AAR' (After Action Report). I had a manager in an early campus IT job that had been in the Marines, and
by eblume 14y ago
Definitions notwithstanding, I tend to prefer the term 'AAR' (After Action Report). I had a manager in an early campus IT job that had been in the Marines, and he enforced a strict mandatory-AAR policy for anything even remotely complex.
It's really a fantastic idea and something I fully intend to use in every capacity that makes sense going forward. It doesn't make much sense as part of the software design flow, but it absolutely could (and probably should) be a tool in any deployment protocol.
My AARs usually read pretty much like this blog post, more or less to the T, although we emphasized what we would do differently in the future more.
- wpietri 14y agoYeah, I think it's an excellent practice. I get the metaphorical use of "postmortem", but think "after-action report" (for the document) and "retrospective" (for the meeting) better capture the flavor of what a good one looks like. And like you, I think the most valuable part is what to do differently next time. The way I work them into the software design flow is just to do them regularly, with varying granularity. We do one every Friday afternoon with beers for the last 30-60 minutes of the day. Normally we discuss whatever interests us most about the week past. But a couple of weeks ago one of the engineers suggested we do one covering the whole year, and it was great. Lots of interesting observations.