The 4-Question Meeting I Stole From the Military

On September 30th my team at Taxifi ran our first After Action Review, a practice borrowed from the military where the team breaks down every deployment to improve the next one. I pulled out my notes from the meeting so you can take it back to your own business.

It's four questions: What was supposed to happen? What actually happened? Why was there a difference? What will we do differently? One facilitator, no blame, everyone has a voice, and 40% of the meeting goes to that last question because that's where the action items come from. I walk through real examples from our review, including why we landed five clients instead of fifteen, and why a bookkeeper, an accountant and an AI developer in the same room will see the same month completely differently.

Chapters
00:00 We just ran our first After Action Review
00:20 What an AAR is: four questions, no judgment
00:48 Forward-looking, not about blame
01:13 Why the bookkeeper sees it differently than the developer
02:17 Get a facilitator and keep it under 90 minutes
02:43 Where this comes from: the military
03:38 Question 1: What was supposed to happen?
04:13 Example: AI categorization at 80–90% confidence
04:33 Question 2: What actually happened?
05:23 Example: we never defined our ideal client
06:00 Question 3: Why was there a difference?
06:11 Example: 10 years of goodwill vs. a one-year-old business
06:58 Question 4: What will you do differently?
07:21 When the team finds the solution without you
07:58 Give 40% of the meeting to the last question
08:32 Bottom-up, not top-down
08:54 Do it every month, keep the team between 7 and 15

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