The main purpose of debriefingis to generate learning fromexperience. Debriefing typicallyfollows training exercises orwork projects that have been‘briefed’. But there are really nolimits to the kinds of experiencesto which debriefing skills can beapplied. All experience, whetheror not it is the result of aplanned activity, is a potentialsource of learning – especially ifit is debriefed well.

In this article, debriefing meansthe facilitation of learning fromexperience, and mostly refers towhat the trainer does; whereasreviewing means learning fromexperience, and mostly refers towhat the learner does. What the learner is doing matters farmore than what the trainer isdoing. Skilled debriefing resultsin participants being fullyengaged in reviewing theirexperiences.

● To help create a learningculture.

● To add value to what ishappening.

● To find out what people areexperiencing.

● To help people learn fromtheir experiences.

● To develop people’s learningskills.

● To help people achieve theirobjectives.

● To make benefits moretangible.

● To assist the process ofevaluation.

● To assist the transfer oflearning into the workplace.

It is widely recognised thatlearning from experience is themost powerful kind of learning.But much of this power remainsuntapped. Many excellent opportunities for learning anddevelopment pass by, becauseexperiences are not reviewedwell or are not reviewed at all. Debriefing seizes such opportunities and makes timefor learning from experience.

The amazing learning abilities ofthe human species seem to bematched by an almost equalcapacity to avoid learning. Fearof the unknown can smother thecuriosity and ambition thatdrives learning. So can thelingering habits of an educationtradition that teaches passivelearners, and shows little interestin what they experience.Effective debriefing must helplearners overcome theirresistance to change and tap intotheir innate desire to learn.

Whose questions? Ideally it islearners’ own curiosity thatdrives the learning process. Sofind the right balance betweenasking questions and generatingquestions.

Delivery

TRAIN the TRAINER • Issue 21

● Avoid common problems.

● Fully engage participants.

● Design debriefing sessions.

● Develop learning skills.

● Improve the transfer oflearning.

Key learning points

TRAIN the TRAINER • ©Fenman Limited 2004

Author

Dr Roger Greenaway provides training and consultancy throughout the UK and worldwide for developing practical

debriefing and facilitation skills. You can find his articles, his tips newsletter, his research findings and his book reviews at

his Active Reviewing website.

Reviewing Skills Training, 9 Drummond Place Lane, Stirling FK8 2JF

Telephone: 01786 450968 • E-mail: roger@reviewing.co.uk • Website: http://reviewing.co.uk

Practical debriefing

Roger Greenaway

About debriefing

Why debrief?

The importanceof debriefing Just think!

Reviewing saves money. Think of the consequences of not learning from experience – for the individual and fortheir organisation. BP saves millions of dollars through regular After Action Reviews. Can anyone afford not toreview?

Trainerdebriefing

skills

Participantreviewing

skills

Participantexperiences

1 Ask What else?To get beyond people’s initial responses to aquestion, try asking: What else did you notice?What else were you thinking? What else went well?

2 Ask Why? Why? Why?To analyse success or failure more deeply, just keepasking Why? This may seem very aggressive. Explainin advance why you will keep asking Why? (and beready to face the Why? challenge yourself). Theresponder may stop the process at any pointwithout explanation. This works well as a pairedexercise.

3 Review anywhere, any timeReviewing ‘little and often’ is part of the culture inBP-Amoco, Motorola and General Electric. AfterAction Reviews are embedded into their way ofworking. The ‘little and often’ principle also appliesto training programmes. Quick, impromptu debriefscan be even more powerful than the scheduledones. Use both.

4 Ask What worked well?

However good or bad the performance, it is goodto acknowledge what worked well and to trace thecauses. Performance improvement comes fromstudying success as well as from studying failure.

5 Provide notebooksLearning from experience cannot be recorded inadvance. Provide notebooks for recordingexperiences, ideas and applications. Provide guidanceabout note-taking and the time to do it well.

6 Use review tasksIf participants respond well to tasks but less well to debriefs, make the debrief a task. The task can be to create a news report, Mind Map® or flow chart, or to prepare a demonstration showingwhat they would keep or change if doing the same task again.

7 Keep movingIf people always sit in the same seats, they can bothlook and feel stuck. Keep changing the groupdynamics, use subgroups, vary the review tasks,change the pace and style. Keep some routines, butremember that you won’t break the mould bystaying in one.

8 Review the reviewYou will become better at debriefing if youregularly review your debriefing sessions. So reviewthe reviews as well as the training exercises.Everyone will benefit.

9 Use several modelsThere is no single model that is so superior that itshould be followed to the exclusion of others. Thereare more good ways of learning than can becaptured in any single model.

10 Be a modelThe most important model is you. Find opportunities to demonstrate that you are learningfrom experience. Join in some of your own reviewing exercises. Seek feedback at suitable opportunities. Taste some of your ownmedicine.

Top tips

After Action Review

1 What was supposed to happen?

2 What actually happened?

3 Why were there differences?

4 What did we learn?

Another strategy that generatesmore balanced participation is tovary the style of reviewing, so thatthe overall variety of reviewingtechniques plays to everyone’sstrengths and preferences. This also introduces greater novelty and interest. Try varying the group size, the location and theresponsibilities. And provide arange of ways in which participantsmay communicate: throughwriting, charts, diagrams, pictures,objects, demonstrations or performances.

The same answers keep coming up.How can we move beyondrepetition and cliché?

This typically happens whendebriefing questions are to do with learning about teamwork.The answers that keep coming are: planning, communication,support, trust, co-operation,

listening, leadership and so on.Everyone appears to be agreeingbecause the answers are at such an abstract level. There are manyways of getting down to moreconcrete levels.

Try ‘scaling’ (see Figure 2). Pick oneof the topics and convert it into aquestion that can be answered on a scale of 0–10; for example:How good was the team’splanning? or How pleased am Iwith my own role in the planning?This starts as a pencil-and-paperexercise, but is best shared in aphysical way by creating a curved spectrum on which people then stand. The curve helps to give everyone a clear view of each other’s position. This sets the stage for a moreconcrete (and more interesting)group discussion.

Also try asking participants to re-stage significant moments.These might be examples of communication at its ‘best’, communication at its ‘worst’ and an ‘interesting’ moment ofcommunication. Everyone recallsthe chosen moment and returns tothe position they were in at thetime. Once in position, time isfrozen (as if a video replay is onfreeze frame), and people areinvited to ask questions aboutwhat they were thinking or feeling

or wanting or predicting at thetime. This often brings out newinformation that will deepen agroup’s understanding of what wasreally happening at thesehighlighted moments.

Such exercises in concreteawareness help to test or fill outthe abstract clichés.

There’s so much to debrief at theend of a programme. How can I fitit all in?

The answer is to start out with awell-planned programme. Trainingprogrammes that show theexercises but leave a blank for thedebriefing sessions are not wellplanned. If your programmes looklike this, try designing yourdebriefing sessions first, and thenchoose the exercises to fit in thespaces. This reduces the chancesthat debriefing will be crowdedout at the end of the programme.It also improves the chances thatdebriefs will be well designed andwell resourced. Designingdebriefing sessions in advance doesnot mean that you are abandoningflexibility. But when there is ablank, unplanned space for adebrief, how confident can you bethat a stimulating, balanced,worthwhile and well-timed reviewwill fill that space?

Practical debriefing

TRAIN the TRAINER TRAIN the TRAINER

Review time just disappears. How canI protect time for debriefing?

The benefits of this change include:

● a clear signal that debriefing is valued

● reviewing time is better protected

● participants are fresh when thereview begins

● learning is fresh when the nextexercise begins.

There is a risk that reviews mayoverrun and eat into exercise time.But reducing exercise time makes alot of sense if your currentprogramme is already generating toomuch to review. Another risk arisingfrom this rescheduling is that hotissues go cold during the break. Avery quick debrief before the breakcan catch that moment and sowseeds for a longer debrief after thebreak. For example, you can createcontinuity by asking each individualto return with a statement orquestion.

Reviews are often negative anduncomfortable. How can a debrief bemore positive?

Try paying closer attention to theresponses you get to your openquestions. You will probably noticethat neutral open questions tend toget negative responses. This is partlydue to the erroneous widespreadbelief that ‘learning from experience’

means ‘learning from mistakes’.Demonstrate that learning fromsuccess happens too, by askingquestions that focus on success.

A simple strategy for restoring the balance is to create a simpletemporary rule:

As this review was so negative, let’sbalance it with a ‘positive only’ rulein the next review.

For balance within a session, try this‘turntable’ discussion (see Figure 1).Half the group may make onlypositive comments about the teamperformance. They sit facing theother half, who may only criticise theteam performance. For a 10-minute

review with 10 people, everyonemoves one place to the left as eachminute passes. As each individualmoves to the opposite side, theyadopt the views of the side they arejoining. This means that eachparticipant spends equal time oneach side of the debate.

A few people dominate. How can Iget more balanced participation?

This is a common problem in groups, and it is even more of aproblem if it happens in debriefingsessions. At its worst, no one isreflecting on experience: the quieter, reflective people are having their thoughts crowded outby the dominant people; thedominant people are jumping in,without taking time to reflect before talking.

There are many remedies, most ofwhich involve not going into whole-group discussion until everyone hashad a good opportunity to reflect ontheir own or with a partner. Whenthe whole group do meet together,the quieter people have had time toprepare what they want to say, andthe louder people will be making amore thoughtful contribution to thediscussion.

Not enough time

Too negative

Too loud and too quiet

Too shallow

Questions and answers about debriefing

Try this programme change. Instead of following the normalpattern: Brief > Exercise > Debrief > Break; try moving thebreak so that each session startswith a debrief. The new sequencebecomes: Debrief > Brief >Exercise > Break.

Instead of asking What did youlearn? (which may sound like aninvitation to report on what wentwrong), try asking What did youachieve and how? As well asasking What would you dodifferently next time?, try askingWhat would you do the same nexttime? As well as asking What doyou need to work on?, also tryWhat strengths and resources canyou use more effectively?

Too much to review

I justjoined in

Nobodylistenedto me

0 10

My idea wasaccepted

I was incharge

(

((

(

(

(

((

(

(

We’ve along wayto go

I’ve justchangedmy mind

On the other hand

We’reimproving

Fig. 2: A curved scale Fig. 1: A turntable discussion