Lesson 7: After-Action Activities

Lesson Overview

The lessons learned during a disaster or other emergency provide the basis for plan revisions and improvements in preparation for the next event. The public works professional plays an important role in helping to review the actions taken during an event and document them for use in future planning, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts.

Upon completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

  • State the purpose of the after-action review.
  • Identify improvement opportunities based on after-action report information.
Purpose of After-Action Reviews

After a disaster or other emergency, stakeholders should gather together in a structured but open environment for a debriefing session with the purpose of identifying improvements in policies, procedures, and actions. During this after-action review, the team will discuss all event-related activity in order to improve planning, mitigation, response, and recovery measures based on lessons learned from the event.

The value of the debriefing session is almost limitless. It will allow all stakeholders to identify strengths and areas for improvement through a review of the effectiveness of preparedness and planning efforts for such an event. Corrective actions and lessons learned will be identified to create opportunities for improvement. In no event, in no incident, and in no community will there ever be incident activity without opportunity for improvement.

Select the link provided to learn more about event-related activities that should be discussed in the after-action review meeting.

After-Action Review Process

For the after-action review process to be successful, it must be supported by all levels of management, particularly at the top. City, county, and tribal administrators and managers, department directors, and elected officials must support the process and set the tone for all subordinate participants.

To ensure a smooth process, a facilitator should be chosen to guide the after-action discussion. Ground rules must be established, and the review must occur in an open environment where the focus is not on placing blame, but on reviewing what happened so the team can determine what might be done differently next time for improved response and recovery.

Select the link provided to learn why it is important not to place blame.

The Role of Public Works in After-Action Reviews

You may want to include only the agencies directly involved in the event in debriefing sessions. In this way, participants can feel free to openly discuss the strengths of the response and recovery efforts, as well as areas for improvement. Although other agencies may also benefit from the lessons learned from the event, you must ensure that the group is not too large to function smoothly.

As you’ve learned, the public works agency is involved in each of the five mission areas of prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery. Its role is particularly important during the recovery process, during which debris management and restoration of services occur, and the department is likely to incur more reimbursable expenses than any other discipline.

For this reason, it is almost certain that the department will need to be involved in the after-action review for every event.

Actions to Review
The basic elements to be considered in the after-action review are:
  • Review of stated objectives
  • Summary of what happened and why
  • Review of how actual actions differed from planned actions
  • Analysis of whether the outcome differed from the planned results
  • Identification of what went well and what needs improvement
  • Identification of future training needs
  • Summary of proposed recommendations
Lessons Learned
Identifying lessons learned is always a primary objective of the after-action review discussion. The lessons may identify some of the following:
  • New training/exercise opportunities
  • Plan/procedure revisions
  • Lifeline or system upgrades and improvements
  • Actions that worked well
  • Deployment strategies
  • Demobilization strategies
  • Resource requirements
  • Communication needs
  • Identification of priorities and critical tasks
  • Identification of legal or liability concerns
Each of these opportunities for lessons learned will include public works as well as various other disciplines or agencies. A unified after-action process is essential for gaining input from all stakeholders.
After-Action Final Report

From the list of lessons learned and corrective actions identified, stakeholders will identify opportunities for improved planning, mitigation measures, response improvements, and long-term recovery ideas.

The after-action final report should include:

  • Recommendations shared with all stakeholders
  • Identification of any new stakeholders
  • Future training plans
  • Short- and long-term goals
  • Timetable and implementation strategy
  • Implementation assignments
  • Follow-up schedule and requirement
  • Documentation

An after-action process is an excellent tool that creates opportunity for change and can enhance community support. After-action activity should be automatic. In fact, the event does not conclude until it is accomplished.

Select the link provided to learn about the types of documentation that should be included.

Voices of Experience: Using Assessment Information to Set Priorities
These public works professionals were asked to discuss the ways in which priorities are established and/or modified based on the results of risk, vulnerability, and damage assessments.
Audio Transcript

Gary Eaton

We conduct after-action reviews, and they are absolutely critical for memorializing the decisions that were made, and, the most critical thing is, it helps the next people that have to respond to the emergency. It helps them that they can see why we made certain decisions that we made and the things that we learned. And it’s just as important to document, certainly, the good things that occurred as well as the bad.

We make sure that everybody participates because oftentimes, if it’s just management or supervisors that participate, they have one view of the incident, but we try and bring everybody in and debrief and make sure that we get the comments because some of the best lessons learned come from the individuals who were the “boots on the ground” during the incident, and they can tell you what worked and didn’t. And I think the big thing is following up with those things that you do learn as a result of the after-action review, to make sure that those gems that you learned during the emergency get brought back into and memorialized into your emergency response plan and procedures so that you don’t have to learn them the hard way the second time.

Christine Walsh

I think after-action reviews are really important, especially to public works. We do an after-action review after every storm event that we have, no matter how big, how small because if you do that you really can get a clear picture on what went really well and maybe what could be improved on and then work on those improvement plans before your next event. And we give actual specifics to each – to different individuals depending on the position, that we want certain positions to do certain things prior to the next storm or next incident that we have.

In fact, today, I just went through an after-action review on a gas main that was hit in our town about three weeks ago. And we had the private utilities come in, police, fire, and public works and we found out what went really well and how we can improve upon that type of incident in the future and we all came away with some goodies that we want to do to improve and then we’ll be getting back together with those improvements.

Gregg Varner

No matter how good you are, no matter how good your plan is, and in reality, even how much you’ve trained and practiced, if you’re hit with a major event, I can almost guarantee you that you’re going to do some things right and some things really well, but you’re going to make some mistakes. It’s just – it’s just a fact. So the idea of looking at all that after an event is how you learn, how you modify your plan, and how you better prepare for the next time, because there will be a next time.

And then, secondary to that, if you do after-action review and write after-action reports, those kinds of things can be shared with other people, and other people in other communities can also learn from what you’ve done, and that’s great.

Lesson Summary

In this lesson, you’ve learned that after-action reviews are an essential part of the emergency management continuum, and public works professionals are vital members of the after-action review team.

By reviewing the actions taken during and after an incident, stakeholders can identify opportunities for improvement. The after-action report documents the actions taken which can be beneficial in the preparedness phase when developing emergency operations plans or during response and recovery efforts for a future, similar event.
Course Summary

In this course, you’ve learned about the role of public works in each of the five mission areas of prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery.

You should now be able to:

  • Define the roles of local, tribal, state, and federal governments as they relate to an understanding of what agency/locale will have authority and responsibility.
  • Develop administrative practices and procedures.
  • State the importance of effective communication.
  • Identify the components that make up the emergency response system.
  • Prepare an After-Action Evaluation and Review.
Now that you have completed this course, your next step is to take the final exam.