Following a major incident or crisis, it’s time to take stock of your plans, processes, and efforts through a thorough after-action process.

In this episode, Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser and Senior Consultant Jen Otremba talk about the need for after-action processes, the immediate “hot wash” discussion after the end of an incident, and then transitioning into a thoughtful after-action approach that will serve to help mature and enhance your crisis management program.

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: The boom is over.

Jen Otremba:      The event happened.

Bryan Strawser: The event happened. Remember, we had this bad thing, whatever it was. We activated our crisis process. We responded, a crisis team came together and interacted and collaborated and schemed and work through a difficult situation.

Jen Otremba:      Outside parties came in.

Bryan Strawser: Outside parties were involved.

Jen Otremba:      Law enforcement maybe was involved.

Bryan Strawser: Now it’s over and we’ve started the process of recovery, which can take years. What do we do?

Jen Otremba:      Now what happens?

Bryan Strawser: Now what happens? How do we learn? How do we know things worked or didn’t work?

Jen Otremba:      I think the first step in this process would be to have an immediate hot wash.

Bryan Strawser: Also, we’re talking about after action processes.

Jen Otremba:      After action.

Bryan Strawser: We start with a hot wash, what the heck is a hot wash? Because I know the first time I heard this, I was like, “What are you talking about? This is a foreign language.”

Jen Otremba:      Yeah. This is something to be honest I feel like we do fairly well in the military, because we do … I learned this from a very young age, that after a big incident, after something occurred, you do some kind of an after action. Sometimes it’s involved, sometimes it’s not as involved, but usually we start with a hot wash. An immediate discussion of what just happened and what went right and what went wrong. Sometimes there’s emotions involved in that discussion as well.

Bryan Strawser: Because it just happened, and particularly if it was a violent event or it was a traumatic event there’s a lot of emotion involved. I think particularly for me, as we’ve talked before, my emotional and adrenaline dump happened when the disaster was over, when I knew that people were safe. It was the hardest time for me, and I think everybody’s going to be different with this but I think most people that do crisis things for a living, that emotional lease comes when the incident’s over. So the hot wash was always a difficult time for me, I had to really collect myself and then focus into this discussion that we were going to have. It’s dependent on the incident of course.

Jen Otremba:      I think we’ve seen over time that that’s the fact for a lot of people, a lot of people go through that. Now their emotions are at an all time high during the hot wash and sometimes fingers get pointed and it’s not helpful, but sometimes it’s really important.

Bryan Strawser: We try to keep that out of …

Jen Otremba:      Try to, yeah.

Bryan Strawser: Hot wash is really more of an informal immediate after action discussion about what just happened. Are we clear on the facts of what just happened? You get into the conversation of evaluating the response from your team. It’s not about individuals, it’s about what worked, what didn’t work. Did we do what we were supposed to do? Did we follow our processes? Or were those processes not adequate and we through them aside along the way?