Intelligence Analysis Management

Intelligence Analysis Management is the process of managing and organizing the analytical processing of raw intelligence information into finished intelligence. The terms "analysis", "production", and "processing" all are used in this phase that is informally called "connecting the dots". Creating an "Intelligence mosaic" is a vivid descriptor for the process. Analysis, processing, and production are all names for the organizing and evaluating of raw information, and putting it in a form in which it can be disseminated to varying consumers. The same body of information may result in multiple analytic products, with different security classifications, time scales, and levels of detail.

While analysis goes back to the beginning of history, Sherman Kent is often considered the father of modern intelligence analysis. He wrote extensively both in open and classified sources, including a seminal 1947 book, Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy . In a long career in the Office of Strategic Services and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he defined many of the parameters of modern analysis and its use by policymakers. In particular, Kent disagreed with the philosophy that analysts never recommend policy, but advise policymakers. "Intelligence analysts are needed because policy officials face challenges that analysts can help them manage, Kent would argue, through mastery of background knowledge, evaluation and structuring of all-source material, and tradecraft expertise. While attentive to problems not yet on the policymaker’s screen, the analyst’s first responsibility is to accommodate clients by producing assessments timed to their decision cycle and focused on their learning curve. This includes providing “actionable” intelligence that can help with curbing threats and seizing policy opportunities." He considered it a partnership, but one in which the analyst did not push a personal point of view: "He would have opposed providing analyses that were intended for use by one set of policy players to force its views on others. For estimative analysis, this requires paying serious attention to seemingly less likely outcomes. For action analysis, this means identifying and evaluating alternatives, leaving to policy clients the responsibility to recommend and choose.... Kent saw no excuse for policy or political bias. He realized, however, that analytic or cognitive bias was so ingrained in mental processes for tackling complex and fluid issues that it required a continuous, deliberate struggle to minimize... he taught analysts to resist the tendency to see what they expect to see in the information. He urged special caution when a whole team of analysts immediately agrees on an interpretation of yesterday’s development or a prediction about tomorrow’s.... One path he recommended for coping with cognitive bias was to make working assumptions explicit and to challenge them vigorously."