The Critical Incident Method, An Overlooked Way of Human Relations Training for Small Business

The paper presents an outline of Pigor's critical incident method for human relations training. The method parallels a real life process of decision making consisting of searching for information, formulating the problem, and deciding upon a course of action based upon explicit reasoning. The method also provides for making generalizations that will be useful in dealing with or preventing future human relations situations. It is pointed out that the critical incident method has advantages for small firms beyond those it shares with large firms. These consist of the special appropriateness for small management groups, the low cost because training sessions can be handled by members of the small organization, the relevance of the cases discussed which come from members of the organization, the flexibility of the format of the method, and finally the number of human relations goals that can be simultaneously developed by those in the same training session.