ISBN: 978-1-60871-018-8

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Preface

1. Introduction and Overview
1.1 Our Vision
1.2 The Value of Team Analysis
1.3 The Analyst’s Task
1.4 History of Structured Analytic Techniques
1.5 What’s in This Book
1.6 Agenda for the Future

2. Building a Taxonomy
2.1 Four Categories of Analytic Methods
2.2 Taxonomy of Structured Analytic Techniques

3. Criteria for Selecting Structured Techniques
3.1 Selection of Techniques for This Book
3.2 Techniques Every Analyst Should Master
3.3 Common Errors in Selecting Techniques
3.4 One Project, Multiple Techniques
3.5 Structured Technique Selection Guide

4. Decomposition and Visualization
4.1 Getting Started Checklist
4.2 Customer Checklist
4.3 Issue Redefinition
4.4. Chronologies and Timelines
4.5 Sorting
4.6 Ranking, Scoring, Prioritizing
4.7 Matrices
4.8 Network Analysis
4.9 Mind Maps and Concept Maps
4.10 Process Maps and Gantt Charts

5. Idea Generation
5.1 Structured Brainstorming
5.2 Virtual Brainstorming
5.3 Nominal Group Technique
5.4 Starbursting
5.5 Cross-Impact Matrix
5.6 Morphological Analysis
5.7 Quadrant Crunching

6. Scenarios and Indicators
6.1 Scenarios Analysis
6.1.1 The Method: Simple Scenarios
6.1.2 The Method: Alternative Futures Analysis
6.1.3 The Method: Multiple Scenarios Generation
6.2 Indicators
6.3 Indicators Validator

7. Hypothesis Generation and Testing
7.1 Hypothesis Generation Techniques
7.1.1 The Method: Simple Hypothesis
7.1.2 The Method: Multiple Hypotheses Generator
7.1.3 The Method: Quadrant Hypothesis Generation
7.2 Diagnostic Reasoning
7.3 Analysis of Competing Hypotheses
7.4 Argument Mapping
7.5 Deception Detection

8. Assessment of Cause and Effect
8.1 Key Assumptions Check
8.2 Structured Analogies
8.3 Role Playing
8.4 Red Hat Analysis
8.5 Outside-In Thinking
8.6 Policy Outcomes Forecasting Model
8.7 Prediction Market

9. Challenge Analysis
9.1 Premortem Analysis
9.2 Structured Self-Critique
9.3 What If? Analysis
9.4 High Impact/Low Probability Analysis
9.5 Devil’s Advocacy
9.6 Red Team Analysis
9.7 Delphi Method

10. Conflict Management
10.1 Adversarial Collaboration
10.2 Structured Debate

11. Decision Support
11.1 Complexity Manager
11.2 Decision Matrix
11.3 Force Field Analysis
11.4 Pros-Cons-Faults-and-Fixes
11.5 SWOT Analysis

12. Practitioner’s Guide to Team Collaboration
12.1 Social Networks and Analytic Teams
12.2 Dividing the Work
12.3 Common Pitfalls with Small Groups
12.4 Benefiting from Diversity
12.5 Advocacy vs. Objective Inquiry
12.6 Leadership and Training

13. Validation of Structured Analytic Techniques
13.1 Establishing Face Validity
13.2 Limits of Empirical Testing
13.3 A New Approach to Validation
13.4 Recommended Research Program

14. Vision of the Future
14.1 Structuring the Data
14.2 Analyzing the Data
14.3 Conclusions Drawn from This Analysis
14.4 Imagining the Future: 2015

The material in this book is critical for training the art and science of analysis. The ideas presented will serve analysts in helping them avoid the pitfalls in the field. There is no manual of its kind dealing with structured analysis. This book has applications not only for Government analysts but is also relevant to the private sector. - Hriar Cabayan

“Many observers, including me, have noted that intelligence analysis as practiced during the Cold War made little use of either machines or formal methods. The blue-ribbon panels investigation intelligence in the wake of 9/11 and the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that weren’t called for more of both, and there is no team better than the authors of this book to provide a cookbook of techniques. Heuer, author of The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, all but created the subject, and Fearson is a long-time practitioner, methodologist and teacher. Their cookbook’s menu of techniques is daunting rich – some three dozen techniques. Happily, those are grouped in a half dozen families; indeed, many of the “techniques” are better conceived of as small variations than separate techniques. As wise veterans, the authors understand that validating analytic techniques is no mean feat. They argue that most of the empirical tests of techniques fail to capture the conditions under which intelligence analysis labor, and instead put most of their chips on “face validity”: if an analytic problem has been proven, and the technique is addressed directly at that problem, on its face that technique should have value.” - Gregory Treverton, Director, RAND Corporation Center for Global Risk and Security

Intelligence community (IC) stalwarts Richards Heuer and Randy Pherson have addressed a gaping lacuna in IC scholarship with their Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis. Finally, we have a work that discusses not only the “hows” but also the “whys” of analysis. Like Heuer’s previous Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, the current volume is destined to become an instant classic; I intend to integrate it into my Intelligence and Security Studies curriculum at the earliest possible opportunity. - Carl Jensen, Director, Center for Intelligence and Security Studies, The University of Mississippi.

The science of reasoning has grown considerably over the past 40-odd years. Among the many fascinating aspects of the human intellect is the ability to amplify our own capabilities by creating analytic tools. The tools in this book are for those whose profession often requires making judgments based on incomplete and ambiguous information. You hold in your hands the toolkit for systematic analytic methods or critical thinking. This is a book you can read and then actually apply to accomplish something. Like any good toolkit, it has some simple tools that explain themselves, some that need explanation and guidance, and some that require considerable practice. Just as the good tool is designed to fit a particular job, the toolkit as a whole must accommodate different preferences and styles of craftsmanship. This book helps us in our quest to enrich our expertise and expand our reasoning skill. - Robert R. Hoffman, Institute for Human & Machine Cognition

Policy advisers cling to the belief that they can simply think their way through difficult conflicts, despite experimental evidence that shows that they do no better than non-experts. Heuer and Pherson’s Structured Analytic Techniques shows how evidence-based techniques can greatly improve experts' judgmental forecasting and decision making. This is the new Bible for decision makers facing conflicts. - J. Scott Armstrong, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Seeking to overcome the perceptual blocks and analytic pathologies identified by Richards Heuer in his seminal work The Psychology of Intelligence, this is the most constructive and probably the most important book on intelligence analysis ever written. It should be compulsory reading for all analysts in the intelligence community as well as all future analysts. Systematic adoption of the structured analytic techniques identified in this volume will not only improve the quality of analysis but also make it less likely that the United States will be the victim of a strategic surprise. The authors have developed techniques which, if put into practice, might take many analysts out of their comfort zones, but will significantly enhance the value and impact of intelligence products. - Dr. Phil Williams, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh

Everyone says that intelligence organizations need to consider alternatives and challenge assumptions, but only with Structured Analytic Techniques do we have a detailed presentation of the ways to proceed. It should prove invaluable to practitioners and insightful to scholars. - Robert Jervis, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics at Columbia University

Heuer and Pherson’s book is an answer to the call that intelligence analysis must improve. Their structured analytical techniques will enrich the analyst’s ability to think, debate and make decisions about the implications of events, threats or opportunities in all fields of study. Applying these practical techniques will reduce our cognitive blind spots by helping us to be mindful of how we think and by more rigorous in the analytical process. The book also aims to shift our current reliance on the individual’s analysis abilities to a shared and social sense-making process where our collective insights make intelligence relevant again. This collaborative approach seeds continuous learning, knowledge sharing and trust on both individual and organizational levels- a goal worth striving for. - Dalene Duvenage, owner, 4Knowledge Analysis Solutions

Heuer and Pherson begin from the premise, correct in my view, that intelligence analysis must become more collaborative, more rigorous, and more transparent if it is to meet customer expectations and national security requirements. Their excellent handbook provides concrete and practical guidance to achieve these goals and meet the challenges of increasingly complex and interconnected issues, information overload, and escalating demands for insight and understanding. Their suggestions reflect decades of experience, careful review of alternative approaches, and recognition that their contribution is an early step in a process requiring continuous learning and improvement. - Thomas Fingar, Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis

Heuer and Pherson’s handbook represents an important step forward in the evolution of the tradecraft of intelligence analysis. Although the book is dedicated to a masterful presentation of the why, when, and how of structured analysis, which will be invaluable to me as a mentor of analysts, it nonetheless recognizes the con¬tinued utility of analysis by expert judgment. The future lies in an ever-expanding role for structured analysis, and the authors wisely call for a research center to track the situational utilities of the various structured analytic techniques. - Jack Davis, Specialist in analytical tradecraft

Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis is a must-read for intel analysts and operators alike. In a field where technological solutions are often overused, the authors remind us of the importance of sound reasoning and show us how collaborative analysis can be done right. I know their techniques work, for I’ve seen them in action and seen the results. Following these techniques will bring a transparent, repeatable methodology to collaborative analysis—useful in areas well beyond the U.S. Intelligence Community. - Jim Dubik, Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of War and also the Institute of Land Warfare; President and CEO of Dubik Associates, LLC

This is a ground-breaking book that will likely become a classic. It will be valued by professional intelligence and other analysts because of the practical way it carefully structures the analytical collaborative process. While based on U.S. experience, it will also be helpful in training and standard-setting in smaller analytical organizations. - Anthony Campbell, Former head of intelligence assessment in Canada’s Privy Council Office

When it comes to intelligence analysis, Randy Pherson has no equal. He kept an audience of 150 of our clients spellbound for six hours. - Kiril Sokoloff, President, 13D Research (USVI) LLC

Richards J. Heuer Jr. is best known for his path breaking book, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, which is used throughout the Intelligence Community. Retired from the CIA, Mr. Heuer has worked with the Intelligence Community in various roles for over five decades. He has won multiple awards for his research and writing, including the CIA Seal Medallion for development of the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses technique.

Randolph H. Pherson, President of Pherson Associates, LLC, has spearheaded teaching and developing analytic techniques and critical thinking skills in the Intelligence Community. He served for 28 years in the Intelligence Community, last serving as National Intelligence Officer for Latin America. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal and the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal and author of the Handbook of Analytic Tools and Techniques.

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