Incident investigation basics

Skills you'll practise

• Describe the immediate actions after an incident, including care, making safe and preserving evidence
• Gather facts from people, the scene, equipment and documents, and build a timeline
• Distinguish immediate causes from underlying causes and avoid stopping at 'human error'
• Write corrective actions that are specific, owned, dated, and checked for effectiveness

Course outline

1. 1.Incident investigation basicsVideo · 2 min
2. 2.First hour: care, make safe, preserve, reportLesson · 15 min
3. 3.Gathering facts and building a timelineLesson · 18 min
4. 4.Causes, corrective actions and follow-upLesson · 17 min
5. 5.Incident investigation basics: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 21 questions
6. 6.The slip at dock 2Scenario
7. 7.Final exam8 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out

Sources it draws on

The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.

• Your organization's incident reporting and investigation procedure
• Your national or local regulator's rules on which incidents must be reported to authorities, and how quickly
• General root-cause analysis practice (5 whys, cause-and-effect diagrams)