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 significant 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.
CIT is a flexible method that usually relies on five major areas. The first is determining and reviewing the incident, then fact-finding, which involves collecting the details of the incident from the participants. When all of the facts are collected, the next step is to identify the issues. Afterwards a decision can be made on how to resolve the issues based on various possible solutions. The final and most important aspect is the evaluation, which will determine if the solution that was selected will solve the root cause of the situation and will cause no further problems.
Read more about Critical Incident Technique: History, Principal Uses, Advantages and Disadvantages, Examples in Informatics / Case Studies
Famous quotes containing the words critical, incident and/or technique:
“Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people’s children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.”
—Erma Bombeck (20th century)
“What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“The more technique you have, the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is, the less there is.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)