The After Action Report System
Learn from mistakes with structured post-mortems
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
The After Action Report System is a structured process for learning from mistakes and improving performance over time. Jimmy describes the mechanism: after a video underperforms → bring all the smartest people together → do a giant presentation with retention charts, CTR, median retention → identify what went wrong → learn from it and make sure it doesn't happen again. The key is to learn from mistakes without blaming people, and to use data to evaluate performance. Jimmy says that as long as people learn from their mistakes and don't repeat them, it's part of the process.
Origin
Extracted from The Diary of a CEO
Core principles
- 01Learn from mistakes by articulating what went wrong
- 02Use data (retention charts, CTR) to evaluate performance
- 03Bring the smartest people together for a post-mortem
- 04Don't blame people for mistakes; learn from them
How to run it
- 1
After a video underperforms, bring all the smartest people together
Assemble the team to discuss what went wrong and what went right.
Pro tip Include people from different departments and areas of expertise.
- 2
Do a giant presentation with retention charts, CTR, median retention
Use data to evaluate performance and identify what went wrong.
Pro tip Use data to evaluate performance and identify what went wrong.
- 3
Identify what went wrong
Look at the data and identify the specific points where the video underperformed.
Pro tip Focus on the data, not on blame.
- 4
Learn from it and make sure it doesn't happen again
Use the insights from the post-mortem to improve future videos.
Pro tip Make sure the same mistakes don't happen again.
In the wild
Jimmy describes a recent video that underperformed and the team did an after action report. They brought all the smartest people together, did a giant presentation with retention charts, CTR, median retention, and identified what went wrong. The team learned from the mistake and made sure it didn't happen again.
→ The team learned from the mistake and improved future performance.
Common mistakes
Not learning from mistakes
If you don't articulate why you messed up and learn from it, you'll keep making the same mistakes.
Focusing on blame instead of learning
The goal is to learn from mistakes, not to blame people for them.
Is it for you?
Best for
Leaders and teams who want to learn from mistakes and improve performance over time.
Not ideal for
Situations where you don't have the data or resources to conduct a thorough post-mortem.
From the transcript
“we call them after action reports so I get all the smartest people in my company”
From the episode
MrBeast: If You Want To Be Liked, Don't Help People! I Lost Tens Of Millions On Beast Games... But I'm Worth $1 Billion!