Critical Decision Method

The critical decision method (CDM) is a strategy for knowledge elicitation and cognitive task analysis. It was designed to gain understanding into the cognitive processes of expert decision making in the natural context of critical, time-pressured crises. It was first developed and applied by Gary Klein and the company he founded, Klein Associates, to determine how experienced individuals rendered decisions efficiently and appropriately in highly stressful, fast-paced, and shifting situations. The critical decision method is underpinned by John Flanagan’s critical incident technique. The critical incident technique concentrates on the explicit knowledge and observable actions required for an activity. The critical decision method expands on data to include a subjective expert perspective to gain insight into the domain expert’s tacit knowledge and decision making.

The critical incident technique generates more easily accessible explicit knowledge, which can be articulated, documented, and compiled into databases and texts. The critical decision method is concerned with garnering the more elusive tacit knowledge, which is more difficult to express or document. Tacit knowledge is embedded in experience, with thinking and behaviors often performed without conscious thought. Identifying, articulating, and communicating this expert tacit knowledge is understandably a challenge, but important to the development of students, trainees, and novices new to a professional domain. The critical decision method presents the opportunity to capture this tacit knowledge for developing and compiling databases and educational materials.

Critical decisions made in unpredictable, highly charged situations by experienced professionals in their fields are often rendered seemingly without thought, almost instinctively. Some might consider this to be professional intuition—the tacit knowledge difficult to articulate that comes naturally for the expert in that field. Decisions made in these challenging unexpected situations are important to achieving a positive outcome for the event. In some cases, the decisions generated could be essential to the operation of a system, or crucial to the survival of involved individuals. This entry discusses how the critical decision method has been used and its potential for use in videos and training simulations. It then explains the method in detail.

The critical decision method was initially implemented by Beth Crandall with expert fire crew commanders to understand their construction of tactical and strategic decisions during the crisis and the unpredictability of managing a fire. The making of appropriate critical decisions is similarly essential for many diverse professions, including pilots in aviation, for paramedics attending to patients in the field, for firefighters, for physicians and nurses in medical crises, for military personnel, for police, for computer systems personnel. This capability for making the appropriate and effective critical decisions during times of high stress and instability is essential to the competent and safe performance of the professional. There is a need to capture these crucial events, the decisions rendered, and how the decisions were attained. As this expert knowledge is difficult to describe, it would be a challenge to teach and learn. Data encompassing this tacit knowledge can inform the development of educational materials and training programs for students and novice practitioners. Gary Klein regarded the knowledge elicitation capacity of the critical decision method as an opportunity to inform on system development and programming with application of technologies to facilitate human performance. Engaging in cognitive task analysis, the critical decision method has the potential to extricate the tacit knowledge of the expert to generate educational tutoring systems for learning and training purposes.

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