Requirements
Requirements in the intelligence cycle relate to what the decision maker is requesting the analyst or team of analysts to research or find for him/her. These requirements may fall under any of the collection methods. Also, the requirements put forth should be an adjunct to policy making, not policy making itself. Ideally, the decision maker will provide the analyst with a clear set of requirements when they request information as to make the cycle flow easier.
However, this is often not the case. Often requirements are too broad or not broad enough and it causes the analyst to make decisions on their own as to how to fill in the gaps in the requirements. However, the analysts could run into the problem of not filling the gaps the wrong way and searching for the wrong information.
Read more about this topic: Failure In The Intelligence Cycle