Guidelines for Writing Incident Reports

You are thinking of how slow the afternoon is in the office when you suddenly hear two of your colleagues having a full-scale argument. As the rest of the office pours into the room at the sudden commotion, you try to ascertain what happened and how it all started. Finally, your colleagues re-sheath their claws and everyone goes back to what they were doing earlier. Later, as you start clearing your desk, your boss calls and instructs you as a senior member of the office to prepare an Incident Report regarding the altercation.
Well-written incident reports are crucial for the formation of objective decisions and the concrete analysis of incidents. Incident Reports provide the needed information for formulating plans or profiles, to develop support strategies and when making decisions.
This means it is extremely important for the Incident Report to reflect clear information in a factual, unbiased manner to avoid passing along opinions and judgments.
Below are some points to remember when preparing an Incident Report:

1. Provide as much information as you have concerning what happened prior to the event and during the event as this may provide a clue to the reader.
2. If you feel you do not have factual information, you may state your opinion provided you clearly indicate that it is your opinion and not fact.
3. Be specific. Describe the incident using clear and concrete terms. No generalities please.
4. Prepare the report immediately after the incident while the facts are still fresh in your memory.
5. Review everything that you have written. Ascertain that all the facts are in and the data has not been tainted with your opinion and bias.