1-Day Workshop · 25 Jan 2027 · Amara Singapore
InvestigativeQuestioning Techniques
A one-day workshop on how you choose, phrase, sequence and time your questions — and how those choices decide whether an account holds up under review.
It sits a level above general interview training, where questioning is one component among many. Here it is the whole day.
Serving Singapore’s public sector since 2004
Why This Matters
Poor Questions Can Weaken a Good Investigation.
How a question is asked can affect the answer, the evidence and the defensibility of the findings.
The Answer Was Suggested
A leading or assumptive question can put the investigator's theory into the answer.
The Real Gap Was Never Tested
Following the account alone can leave key gaps and contradictions untested.
The Interview Lost Direction
Evasion and digression can shift the interview away from its purpose.
The Question Came Too Soon
Narrowing too early can prevent a full, unprompted account.
The Inquiry Moved Outside Its Scope
Irrelevant or out-of-scope questions can compromise fairness and proper process.
The Findings Became Harder to Defend
Poor questioning can undermine otherwise sound findings.
Learn to make every question purposeful, neutral and defensible.
The Capability Gap
Experience Is Not the Same as Questioning Discipline.
When instinct tells you an answer is thin, the question that recovers what is missing is the one that matters. This workshop turns that judgement into a method you can repeat.
Common interview habits
- —Rely on experience and instinct
- —Follow the account as presented
- —Probe when something feels incomplete
- —Keep the conversation moving
- —Record the answers given
Disciplined investigative questioning
- ✓Ask each question for a defined purpose
- ✓Sequence questions around evidence gaps
- ✓Test answers without suggesting them
- ✓Manage evasion without losing direction
- ✓Build a line of inquiry that withstands review
About This Workshop
After the interview course, you need the next level.
This programme is for those who already conduct interviews. It concentrates on one thing: how a question is chosen, formed, sequenced and timed — and why that decides what your file can prove.
There is no general interview process here, and no behavioural theory. The day runs on case examples and role plays, where you work your own phrasing and find out where it would have failed.
The techniques apply across fraud, regulatory, disciplinary and administrative work, and to everyone an inquiry has to speak to.
Who Should Attend
You conduct the interviews, and you answer for what the file can prove
For government and corporate professionals involved in investigative, regulatory, compliance, fraud, disciplinary or administrative inquiries. Prior experience is helpful but not essential.
What You'll Gain
Conduct More Purposeful and
Defensible Interviews
You leave with a practical method you can apply to your next investigative interview.
Identify Evidential Gaps
Find what remains missing, inconsistent or unproven.
Plan a Questioning Strategy
Turn objectives into a purposeful sequence of questions.
Select the Appropriate Question
Match the question type to the situation.
Maintain Neutrality and Fairness
Control language, tone, pace and silence.
Manage Evasion and Digression
Redirect unresponsive answers without confrontation.
Avoid Improper Questions
Recognise questions that can compromise an account.
Build a Defensible Line of Inquiry
Create questioning that reviewers can follow and evaluate.
Strengthen Investigative Findings
Support sound conclusions with more reliable accounts.
Why This Workshop Is Different
A Focused Workshop on Questioning —
Not a General Interviewing Course
This workshop focuses on the questioning decisions that affect the quality of the information obtained.
What Past Participants Say
Practical, Relevant and Grounded in Experience.
"The course is useful to help me understand the different questions to be asked in different situations."
"The examples and role plays are interesting and relevant."
"Thank you for sharing your knowledge and information from experience in this course!"
Programme Outline
One Day. Four Modules. A Structured Questioning Method.
Move from identifying evidence gaps to asking effective questions and avoiding those that weaken an account.
Every Question Has A Job
- What the interview has to deliver before you walk in
- Reading a file for what is missing, not just what is there
- Turning each gap into the question that would close it
- Why an interview that flows well can still produce nothing usable
Control Without Pressure
- Wording a question so it carries no expected answer
- Tone, pace and silence — and why silence usually outperforms the next question
- Bringing a drifting account back without hardening the person against you
- Recognising the point where a question leaves your mandate
When The First Answer Is Not Enough
- Open, closed, probing and clarifying — and which one an incomplete answer calls for
- Setting the parameters of an answer before the person narrows it for you
- Asking the same thing twice without signalling that you disbelieve the first answer
- Reflecting an account back so the person corrects it themselves
- Sequencing so the account is given before it can be shaped
The Questions That Break An Account
- Leading and misleading questions, in phrasing that sounds entirely reasonable
- Assumptive and hypothetical questions, and what they do to an admission
- Multiple and complex questions — why the person answers only the easy half
- How a reviewer, an auditor or a court reads these back off the record
Your Trainer
Taught By Someone Who Trained The Interviewers.
Alan Elangovan designs and delivers investigative interviewing programmes for government agencies and corporate investigation teams. Thirty years of that work sits behind the method taught here — most of it spent training officers who question people for a living.
He spent two decades as a Master Trainer with Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs, where he designed and delivered investigative interviewing programmes across multiple agencies. Since 2004, he has also served as a principal resource person for the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, training officers in advanced detection techniques. Seven years with the Singapore Armed Forces and subsequent corporate training work sit behind the method — military precision applied to a practical subject.
He is the author of Crime & Criminal, Encyclopedia of Body Language and Eyes to Spot Lies, and developed the "Profiling Techniques and Behavioural Courses" programme used in forgery detection, criminal interviews and threat assessment.
Alan teaches from cases he has worked, and the day runs as an exchange rather than a lecture.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Use the ready-to-edit justification letter to explain how the workshop supports your investigative responsibilities, the capability it develops and its relevance to your organisation. You can adapt it to your supervisor’s approval requirements.
↓ Download Justification for Approval LetterRegister Now
Investigative Questioning Techniques
9:00 am – 5:00 pm | Amara Singapore