Incident Method

A peer-consultation method for a standing group of five to eight colleagues, in eight steps around one incident. The presenter states their question in one sentence (three minutes) and describes one concrete moment without telling how it ended (four minutes); the group asks about the facts (three minutes) and analyses what is going on while the presenter listens (ten minutes); everyone writes down what they would do and from what stance, and says it briefly (seven minutes); then the presenter tells what they actually did or will do, relating it to those alternatives (three minutes); every participant names one insight (five minutes); and the group looks back at the session itself (three minutes). The construction sits in step 2: because the ending is missing, the group cannot judge and has to think for itself.

Because otherwise the group does not analyse but judges. Whoever hears "and then I sent him out of the class" thinks from that moment on about that choice — right or wrong — and no longer about the situation. Whoever does not know the ending has to work out what is going on and make a choice themselves, and that is exactly what the presenter gets out of it: seven people who have thought about their moment independently of their decision. So the withholding is not a game but the method, and the facilitator guards it in two places: in step 2 by interrupting the moment the ending approaches, and in step 3 by banning the question "and then?". In step 6 the ending comes after all — and then it is one of the alternatives, not the answer.

The eight steps add up to thirty-eight minutes with the default times: 3, 4, 3, 10, 7, 3, 5 and 3. With settling into the circle, the transitions and the reflection questions at the end, one incident comes to forty to fifty minutes in practice — plan it as the whole subject of a session, not as an agenda item. Whoever prepares the structure sets the time per step; the player counts down. Two steps carry the method and keep their time: the analysis and the alternatives. The short steps around them can be tighter, and with five colleagues the alternatives are read out in five minutes. Two incidents in one session are an hour and a half with a break.

Five to eight, in one circle. Below five the alternatives round yields too few different answers — and the range is the point of that step; above eight the reading out takes longer than the writing and the analysis becomes a string of separate remarks. The player allows three to twelve so that a group just under or over the mark can still run, but the method is made for five to eight. Split a larger team into two circles, each with its own incident.

Listen, and not correct — not even when the group has it wrong. That is the method's second construction, next to withholding the ending: the moment the presenter says "no, that's not how it was", the group stops thinking and starts asking questions, and the analysis turns into a second clarification round. And what the group gets wrong is information: that is how their situation looks from outside, with the facts they have given. Corrections can come in step 6, where they tell what they did and the group may ask questions to make it concrete. In step 5 they still stay silent too; they hear the alternatives out and choose only afterwards.

Yes, and that is one of the strongest uses. The presenter tells a situation that is approaching — Thursday's meeting with a parent, the first lesson after a conflict — and stops at the moment where they will have to choose. The group analyses and writes alternatives exactly as for a past incident; in step 6 the presenter then says not what they did but what they will do, and chooses from what they have just heard. The player already says so in the response step: "say what you did or will do". Agree that they tell next time how it ended.

Three things carry the round. One: the ending. In step 2, interrupt without hesitating the moment the presenter slides towards the outcome — "stop, I don't want that part yet" — and in step 3 ban the question "and then?". Two: the banned question. "Why did you do that?" is a judgement in disguise; rephrase it once out loud into "what did you say then?" and the group does it themselves after that. Three: the silence. In step 4 the presenter stays silent and does not correct; in step 5 the timer first gives two minutes in which everyone writes, and only then does the round start. The player does the rest — the question stays on the board, the incident stays on the screen — and as the facilitator, do the structure once as the presenter yourself: nothing teaches a group so quickly why the ending is not allowed as someone who has had to swallow it themselves.

That happens in two predictable places. In step 3, with "why did you do that?" — rephrase towards what happened. And in step 6, once the ending is known and the group starts "but wouldn't it have been better to…": that is discussion, not a question. Say beforehand that in step 6 the group asks to understand, not to be proven right, and that the alternatives have already been spoken — the presenter has heard them and chooses for themselves. The reflection in step 8 also asks the group itself where the inquiry slipped into judging; after two rounds a group recognises the moment on its own.

Both have the presenter listen for a step while the group talks about their situation, but they end differently. The Gossip Method is shorter, five steps, and yields an outside view: the presenter hears what their situation sounds like when they are not joining in, and says themselves what they take away — no alternatives, no decision. The Incident Method withholds the ending, has the group analyse and write down alternatives, and ends with what the presenter did or will do. Rule of thumb: Gossip Method when the presenter wants an honest mirror, or starts explaining the moment feedback arrives; Incident Method when the team wants to know what you can do in such a moment.

The Socratic conversation examines which stance is wise in a situation: the group puts itself into the hot point of the case and reasons with the four cardinal virtues — no advice, no decision, a shared understanding. The Incident Method examines action: what is going on here, what would I do, what did you do. Choose the Socratic conversation for a dilemma about what is right and a group that wants depth; the Incident Method for a concrete moment in which someone had to do something and the team wants to know what. Both fit in the same standing group.

In upper secondary it can, in a tutor group that knows each other, with three conditions: the presenter volunteers, the incident is about a situation outside the classroom — a part-time job, a placement — and you sit in the circle to guard the ending and rephrase the banned questions. From vocational education onwards and in higher education it is one of the best peer-consultation structures for placements, because a placement incident is real and has an ending the group does not know. Younger than upper secondary it does not fit: ten minutes of analysing what sits under an incident while the presenter stays silent requires an abstraction that is not there yet. For the class, Four Corners with options for action does the same work without putting anyone on the chair.

Yes, and better than most peer-consultation structures, because the writing of step 5 happens by itself online: everyone types their alternative and their stance into a shared document while the timer runs, and then reads it out. The presenter mutes their microphone in step 4 — listening without correcting is easier online than in a circle — and unmutes in step 6. Share the player's screen or give everyone the live link, so every participant has the step, the timer and the incident text in front of them.

The construction — discussing an incident without its ending, so that the group has to decide for itself — is the Incident Process that Paul and Faith Pigors developed at MIT in the 1950s as a case method for training managers: not a ready-made case, but an incident from which the participants themselves have to extract the facts before taking a decision. In Dutch peer-consultation practice (intervisie) that approach was shaped into a fixed method in eight steps, described in the Praktijkboek Intervisie by Monique Bellersen and Inez Kohlmann and in the intervision literature of Jeroen Hendriksen — with the alternatives round and the reflection on the session itself as additions from that tradition.