Critical Incident Technique

The Critical Incident Technique (or CIT) is a set of procedures used for collecting direct observations of human behavior that have critical significance and meet methodically defined criteria. These observations are then kept track of as incidents, which are then used to solve practical problems and develop broad psychological principles. A critical incident can be described as one that makes a contribution—either positively or negatively—to an activity or phenomenon. Critical incidents can be gathered in various ways, but typically respondents are asked to tell a story about an experience they have had.The studies of Sir Francis Galton are said to have laid the foundation for the Critical Incident Technique, but it is the work of Colonel John C. Flanagan, that resulted in the present form of CIT. Flanagan defined the Critical Incident Technique as: set of procedures for collecting direct observations of human behaviour in such a way as to facilitate their potential usefulness in solving practical problems and developing broad psychological principles ... By an incident is meant any specifiable human activity that is sufficiently complete in itself to permit inferences and predictions to be made about the person performing the act. To be critical the incident must occur in a situation where the purpose or intent of the act seems fairly clear to the observer and where its consequences are sufficiently definite to leave little doubt concerning its effects.CIT can be used in training, systems design and accident investigation. It is an integral part of large scale task analysis. It identifies the most costly happenings in a complex environment where people and machines work as a system. Its origin in investigating pilot errors in wartime,328 et seq and other life-and-death situations, means it identifies top priorities in a man-machine system or other complex action-oriented situation. These priorities then feed into procedures for selection and training, and also (continuing the pilot example) into cockpit instrument design.By identifying possible problems associated with major user–system or product complications, CIT recommendations try to ensure that the same type of situations do not result in a similar loss. There are both advantages and disadvantages to using this method, as shown below. Overall, however, CIT has been demonstrated to be a sound method since first presented in 1954. Relatively few modifications have been suggested to the method in the more than 50 years since it was introduced, and only minor changes have been made to Flanagan's original approach, indicating reasonable robustness.Volume 28, 2017 - Issue 11-12.