Every service-based company — especially a CPA firm — needs to find a way to make after-action reviews a standard practice.
I get the apprehension. Taking the time to review activities and actions is not billable, and as CPAs, we often try to minimize nonbillable hours as much as possible. Nevertheless, after-action reviews will not only help you find process or performance improvements, but also help you uncover new processes or knowledge that your team is using that could be applied across your entire business.
First, understand what performing an “after-action review” means, and why you need it. Let’s start this conversation by defining the main question: “What is an after-action review”?
After-action reviews are a structured process for reviewing the events of a completed project or activity. Within the framework of a CPA firm that’s working on project-based assignments, you might apply AARs after every major engagement with a client. These reviews will primarily include the individuals who were involved in the project or task, as well as those who were directly involved in overseeing that project.
These reviews will help you capture the knowledge that your CPAs learned on the job. The only way to do that is to do the job, and then take a step back and reflect on it. At some point in an engagement or in client service delivery, you should step back and ask a few questions:
- What have we done so far?
- Did it meet expectations?
- Could we do it better next time?
That knowledge is critical in growing your business and improving your processes and engagements with clients in the future. That’s a key part of your firm’s intellectual capital. It’s part of its structural capital that can be reused on other engagements.
AARs will improve the future performance of your business. When you ask the right questions about the success of your projects, you set yourself up for potential process or performance improvements. That will ultimately improve the future performance of your business and create growth opportunities for your team members.
Note that this means your AARs aren’t just a pat on the back for a job well done. There needs to be a significant level of critical assessment in them, both in terms of whether your firm’s processes worked as intended, but also whether the accountants who work with you performed their roles adequately.
A learning tool, not a blame game
The point of an AAR is to help improve your company and develop the skills of your team members. In practice, that means putting psychological safety at the forefront of the entire process.
AARs are not the place or time to play the blame game. As a learning tool, they are growth-centric.
In pedagogy, or the study of how people learn, operant conditioning describes two key ways to help someone learn: reinforcement or punishment. Study after study shows that positive reinforcements work better and faster to develop growth and chance.
This aspect of the after-review process ultimately comes down to a people management topic. The CPA profession already has one of the highest turnover rates among many other industries, so make sure you make your AAR process a positive engagement rather than a negative one.
If your team members can sit in an after-action review and admit mistakes knowing that they won’t be nailed for it on their annual performance review, that’s a huge win. And it’s how after-action reviews should be done.
Two key actions to add AARs to your CPA firm
AARs don’t need to be terribly complicated for CPA firms, including those that utilize an evergreen approach. As you strategize how to add after-action reviews to your CPA firm’s normal processes, take these two tips into account.
1. Normalize the cadence
Your first step is to normalize when you incorporate AARs into your client engagements. For CPA firms with a traditional model, the answer to this is simple: hold them until after each project is complete.
For CPA firms with a value-based pricing model and an evergreen approach, consider adding an AAR once you complete certain milestones. Assuming you have a standardized playbook for how you complete different projects or actions, you should have a fairly clear idea of when to add reviews into the normal cadence of your work.
For example, if forecasting is part of your service offering, you’ve likely created a repeatable process for how this works with your clients. You can add in an AAR to the forecasting process at a time that makes the most sense.
2. Operationalize the review structure
If there’s one thing we love as CPAs, it’s repeatable processes. Your AAR process is no different. As you launch after-action reviews, think strategically about how you can make those meetings repeatable in a way that gets consistent results.
That repeatable structure could be as simple as asking the same types of questions each time, utilizing meeting recording tools that automate note-taking and then using AI tools that will summarize the main points and main ideas of that meeting for you.
After-action reviews can help you become a better firm, but only if you do them the right way and make them a regular part of your work. I highly recommend checking outEpisode 97 of the “Modern CPA Success Show,” where industry expert Ron Baker shares more insights and advice on after-action reviews.
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