After Action Reports and Performance reviews.

As I was talking with Wes Carey this weekend, he mentioned something I found interesting. The AAR (After Action Report). From what I gathered, its a review of your practice and performance. The report is ment to be objective by having at least 3 positives and 3 negatives mentioned about the performance of yourself, someone else, or your team. To me this seems very balanced so that the objective of the report (to learn from mistakes) is more important than high fives, or scolding. I too have developed a AAR of my own by taking notes of the games I attend by marking down a dogtag for each insert into the game. I note the time of the insert, and time I'm hit out. I note how much paint used, how many missions completed or assisted, and how many opfor I hit. Each dogtag counts as a life of my own. I then take the information and log into spec ops brigade to record my game. Hopefully one day there will be a database thats more indepth to truely show a players performance.

This is a very important skill to develop on a team, and the truth is that everyone goes through this process. We all like to tell stories of what we did in games past and how we overcame the odds. However, most players have no idea that's what they're doing. The thing is that you must remain objective and also talk about the mistakes that you made. The best way to do this is to go through the events of the day from start to finish, and leave no stone unturned (i.e. talk about the details). The AAR is just as much apart of the game or practice as the marker, and sometimes more important.

This is a skill that we teach in the basic course and that we continue to develop throughout all of our courses. So next time you're sitting with your buddies talking about games you played in the past, take a minute and pull up three things you could have done better, three things you probably shouldn't have done at all, and three things you should continue to do, and your game will improve.

Hey guys. AAR is a little confusing to me still. If you don't know it's Josh. Can you refresh me on the subject. Hey Charles I finnally registered on here.

Hey Josh,

I'll chime in and then I'm sure Goblin will also.
The AAR is very important for teams and players wanting to get better at the game. The AAR is, for our team, an after action review or discussion, of what happened in the game. As Goblin said, most players do this already " Hey that was cool the way you snuck around the bushes and got me." "Yeah I thought I'd try a flank." What the AAR does is it anyalizes that whole movement to see what worked, what didn't, what we can learn from it, and how we can impliment changes in the future. It's a way for us all to learn from each other and give each other more than pats on the back, but better our individual game, and our game as we work as a team.

Hope that helped some.

Alright, yea I remember this. I'm just not sure about the sequence. Is it "up,up" or something like that? I remember you say up for how many full pods you have left. I just don't remember how you communicate your status. Alright thanks.

Tacman

Hehe, what your talking about is the on field report. That is for a head count, a pod count, and,,,,,,something else. I'm still new to that process. It's not parimount, but we will all work on it and Goblin will set us straight on the proceedure.

The AAR happens off the field of play. Its a group discussion of what happened intended for learning. Know what I mean?

Oh, woops. Alright I get it now. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'm just going to go now. Talk to you later.

Tacman

No reason to be embarrassed about asking a question. Remember that questions are always a good thing. There is nothing wrong with it at all that is how we learn.

Sorry for laughin Tac, it was more at my own lack of knowledge. Keep speaking up about stuff.

I wasn't really embarressed. I'm just playing with the emoticons. Talk to you later.

Tacman