Effective Detective

DEVELOPING A ‘DICTIONARY’ FOR SIO SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGEand abilities of ‘effective’ SIOs. The repertory grid and the critical incident analysisin particular act as a mechanism for illustrating the presence or absence ofparticular skills in specific individuals and/or situations. Secondly, by using threedifferent approaches it is possible to look for convergence in the data from eachmethod, to see the extent to which each method suggests a similar pattern of skillsand abilities. Where we see agreement between the methods this gives us greaterconfidence in the findings.3The repertory grid technique usesthe term dimensions, which in thisstudy refers to the skills andabilities of an SIO.4The term ‘skill’ refers to skills,abilities and knowledge.Within the semi-structured interview, respondents were asked initially to identifythe three or four most critical skills required by ‘effective’ SIOs. All officersanswered this question citing a wide range of skills and abilities (we subsequentlyrefer to this question as the ‘critical skills’ question). For the repertory gridinterview, 30 officers generated 205 dimensions 3 or skills that distinguishedbetween ‘effective’ and ‘less effective’ SIOs. Finally, the critical incident techniqueproduced a total of 89 incidents, yielding 38 examples of less effective practice and51 examples of good practice. These were also analysed to elicit the skills thatcharacterised both ‘effective’ and ‘less effective’ SIOs.A standard framework was developed for coding the data from the three analyticalapproaches. Combining the three sets of results generated a core set of 22 different‘skill’ categories. 4 These are listed alphabetically in Figure 2 below (see Appendix Afor detailed definitions for each skill category).Figure 2: Summary of the skills required by ‘effective’ SIOs●●●●●●●●●●●●AdaptationAdministrative competenceAppraisal of informationAppropriate delegationAwareness of future developmentsConsultation with the teamDecision-makingHandling expert adviceInnovative investigative styleInterpersonal skillsInvestigative competenceLeadership●●●●●●●●●●Maintaining professional integrityManaging the communication processOrganising the mechanics of theinvestigationPlanning the investigationResource managementStaff developmentStaff supportStrategic awarenessTeam-buildingUnderpinning knowledgeComparisons with previous researchAn initial comparison with previous research suggests that our 22 skill categoriesdiffer somewhat from those indicated by earlier studies. However, when weexamine the detail of skills and abilities that other studies have assigned to19