Critical Incident Analysis

This is a way of analysing a recent event significant event in order to examine it in

detail, learn from the experience and consider what might have been done diferently,
or what might be done differently in the future.

This can be an individual activity but it may be more engaging and profitable if done
as a pair or as a group.

This might be with networks colleagues or with colleagues in your own school who
have a better understanding of the context and may see it a fruitful professional
development activity.

Step 1 Description

Set the context (e.g. time of day or week, preceding events, people involved)

Who was involved?
What did different people do? And not do?
What was said? And not said?
What were the preceding events?
What was the outcome?

Step 2

Having described, as far as possible, what happened, now reflect on questions such
as:

What might have been done differently?
What were the possible options? (allow for all possible ideas)
Who held the options?
Why were they not used? (still avoiding blame or judgement)
What have I/we learned from the incident?
What might I/we do differently next time?


Rules of engagement

Suspend judgement. Dont allocate blame.
Dont argue for your construction of the event
Consider or listen to others views