ANALYTIC TrANsformATIoN

Unleashing the potential of a CommUnity of analysts

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

September 1, 2008

OnbehalfoftheOfficeoftheDirectorofNationalIntelligence,Iampleasedtointroducethisbrochureentitled,“AnalyticTransformation–UnleashingthePotentialofaCommunityofAnalysts.” As the brochure indicates, we are engaged in a number ofinitiativesacross the IntelligenceCommunity (IC) thataredesigned tocreateamorecloselyintegratedcommunityofanalysts.Ourcollectivegoal is toget the rightanalysis to the rightpeopleat the right time, inaformtheycanuse.Webelievewecandothismoreeffectivelyasacommunitythanasdisconnectedelementsworkingseparately,andthatbeliefformsthecentralpremiseformuchoftheAnalyticTransformation(AT)program.ATseekstoprovideanalystssharedaccesstorelevantinformation, solutions to the challenges presented by expanding datavolume, common training in rigorousanalyticmethodsand standards,andeasywaystoworkwithfellowexpertsinsideandoutsidetheIC. ThisbrochurepresentsabstractsofATinitiatives,thebenefitstheyprovidetomembersoftheIC,andcurrentstatusofeachinitiative.WehopethisoverviewoftheATprogramwillencourageyoutoseekmoredetailsabouttheprogramand,mostimportantly,tocontributeyourideas,critiques,andsharedworkasweunleashthepotentialofacommunityofanalyststomeetthegrowingnationalsecuritychallengesthatfacetheUnitedStatesanditsallies. Wehavemadesignificantprogressoverthepastyear.I thank all those who have dedicated themselves to making the ATprogramasuccess.Ilookforwardtoourcontinuingdialogueandtoyourvaluablecontributions.

Sincerely,

ThomasFingar

Office Of The DirecTOr Of NaTiONal iNTelligeNce

DepuTy DirecTOr Of NaTiONal iNTelligeNce fOr aNalysis

WashiNgTON, Dc 20511

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Analytic Transformation 4

Library of National Intelligence (LNI) 7

A-Space 8

Catalyst 9

Integrated Collection and Analysis Requirements System (ICARS) 10

Intellipedia 11

National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF) 12

Analytic Mission Management (AMM) 13

Rapid Analytic Support and Expeditionary Response (RASER) 14

Summer Hard Problem Program (SHARP) 15

Analytic Resources Catalog (ARC) and Analyst Yellow Pages 16

Tradecraft Training in Critical Thinking and Structured Analysis 17

Analytic Standards 18

Executive Intelligence Summary (EIS) 19

TAbleOFCONTeNTS

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Analytic Transformation

Unleashing the Potential of a Community of Analysts

What is Analytic Transformation?Analytic Transformation (AT) seeks to shift longstanding intelligence operations in the direction of greater collaboration. The program is an effort by the Intelligence Community (IC) to improve the quality and utility of intelligence by transforming how we approach analysis, how we deal with information, how we manage what we collectively know, and how we interact with collectors, customers, and each other. Initiatives are under way in three areas: 1) enhancing the quality of analytic products, 2) managing the mission more effectively at a Community level, and 3) building more integrated analytic operations across the IC.

How can Analytic Transformation help us? The AT program will broaden the role of the analyst from expert to explorer — someone proficient in using all types of data and working with many kinds of experts to uncover broad patterns or discover individual intelligence gems. We want IC analysis to be clear, transparent, objective, and intellectually deep. We want analysts to know their customers and bring them into the process. We want our analysts to take pride in their services, knowing that they are using superlative analytic techniques and the best possible information. We expect our analysts to work with experts wherever they are found and to produce intelligence that is used because it is useful. By bringing the analytic community together more closely, the AT program will help analysts to achieve these goals more efficiently.

Why is this Analytic Transformation necessary now?The timing of AT is driven by urgent mission imperatives, including the need to tap all available insight even when time is short, the need to make sense of far more information than analysts can possibly review in traditional ways, and a heightened responsibility to provide intelligence in a form that decision makers can easily use. It is a top priority of the Director of National Intelligence, and will better prepare U.S. intelligence for the years ahead.

The core elements of AT are a direct response to dramatic changes occurring in external conditions shaped by factors beyond our control. These driving factors include:

▪ Shifting demographics: The “greening” of the analytic workforce brings energy, information, Internet savvy, and fresh perspectives, but it also necessitates accelerating analysts’ progress up the learning curve.

▪ Growing volume of information: We are in the midst of a long-term explosion of information sources available to the U.S. and its adversaries. Continued improvements and fundamentally new methods will be necessary to keep pace.

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▪ Compression of decision cycles: Consumer needs for intelligence often come with very short notice and shorter deadlines. The Community must be able to determine what it knows on any subject very quickly — and needs to have that knowledge readily available when asked for immediate answers to difficult questions. ▪ Increased complexity of intelligence issues: Intelligence topics and consumer questions increasingly call for rapid integration of expert knowledge from multiple analysts. The requisite expertise cannot always be found within a single intelligence organization. With shorter deadlines, the Community requires more efficient ways for experts to collaborate across organizational boundaries.

▪ Evolving analytic methods: Both inside and outside the IC, ongoing improvement in analytic methods, and in new tools and technologies are available to support critical thinking by both individuals and groups. We need to adapt our routines to exploit these new opportunities.

▪ Greater emphasis on analysis: Specialized collection remains important, but in a world of complexity, information overload, fragmentary information, and deception, the advantage increasingly goes to the nation that can identify and exploit the right information quickly — and translate that information into insight that reveals strategic options and informs immediate decisions.

▪ New consumers: With the advent of a new Administration and the need to support new missions, we have an opportunity to reshape what consumers expect from us and how we interact with them. Consumer habits and preferences may change as well, shifting in the direction of greater emphasis on immediate access to intelligence through multi-media capabilities to receive and forward intelligence within their own departmental networks and supported via mobile devices with options for direct follow-up with knowledgeable intelligence officers. The way we produce and protect intelligence needs to evolve in parallel.

To accomplish the necessary transformation, we must draw upon the collective strengths of the IC to execute a smooth transition from largely independent elements to a single integrated enterprise. We must do this together in a way that ensures the timely delivery of accurate and useful analytic insights for the policymakers, diplomats, warfighters, first responders, and all consumers of intelligence who depend on us to perform their missions.

What is happening with Analytic Transformation?

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AT incorporates near-term efforts already underway and longer-term concepts that are just beginning to be translated into concrete initiatives. AT initiatives are consolidated into three main areas and include — but are not limited to — the following:

Building More Integrated Analytic Operations ▪ Improving data-sharing policy (including removing ORCON barriers within the IC) ▪ LNI (Library of National Intelligence): Page 7 ▪ A-Space – Common work environment for analytic research and discovery: Page 8 ▪ Catalyst – Preparing collected intelligence for more effective selection, exploitation, and analysis: Page 9 ▪ ICARS (Integrated Collection and Analysis Requirements System): Page 10 ▪ More closely integrated customer service across the Community ▪ Enhancing near-term collaboration capabilities — Collaboration Consultation Team — Communities of Interest — Intellipedia: Page 11

Managing the Mission at a Community Level ▪ NIPF (National Intelligence Priorities Framework): Page 12 ▪ AMM (Analytic Mission Management) - Enhancing resource allocations against key topics: Page 13 ▪ RASER (Rapid Analytic Support and Expeditionary Response) teams: Page 14 ▪ SHARP (Summer Hard Problem Program): Page 15 ▪ MINTWG (Multi-INT Working Group) Community innovation program ▪ ARC (Analytic Resources Catalog) and Analyst Yellow Pages: Page 16

Enhancing the Quality of Analytic Products ▪ Tradecraft Training in Critical Thinking and Structured Analysis: Page 17 ▪ Training for managing collaborative analysis ▪ Product evaluation program ▪ Source citation policy ▪ Writing and classifying products for maximum utility ▪ Fostering alternative analysis ▪ Increasing outreach and engagement with external experts ▪ Analytic Standards - Governing the production and evaluation of national intelligence analysis: Page 18 ▪ EIS (Executive Intelligence Summary): Page 19

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Library of National Intelligence (LNI)Making Discovery Easier

What is the Library of National Intelligence?The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is teaming with the Central Intelligence Agency to create an authoritative Intelligence Community (IC) repository for all disseminated intelligence products, regardless of classification. This repository is called the Library of National Intelligence (LNI). One of its key features is a card catalog containing summary information for each report — classified at the lowest possible level to enable analysts to discover nearly anything that has been published by the IC regardless of document classification. Analysts will be able to request these documents in accordance with individual access levels and security guidelines. Services provided by LNI also will include the ability to track trends in Community output on key intelligence topics, statistics showing the most used or cited intelligence reports, and services that enable other Community portals and applications to link to appropriate intelligence in the LNI.

How can LNI help us? Currently, we have no effective mechanism to monitor the IC’s combined efforts against any topic. When fully operational, the LNI will serve as the central authoritative source for analysts, collectors, intelligence managers, and government officials to discover the spectrum of disseminated intelligence across the Community. It will be a window into the IC that shows what intelligence is being disseminated, and perhaps more importantly, where there are gaps.

The LNI also will enable analysts and collectors to discover colleagues working on related topics, allow collectors to assess the extent to which their output is being used in finished intelligence, and provide IC managers and customers insight into the alignment of IC production and national intelligence priorities.

What is happening with LNI?As of September 2008, seven of the 16 IC elements are submitting products routinely to the Library. Roughly 750,000 products have been submitted to the repository since its launch in November 2007, and the Community is adding approximately 20,000 per week. Our goal is to expand participation to include routine submissions from all 16 IC elements by the start of calendar year 2009.

A-SpaceEnriching Analysis

What is A-Space?In today’s dynamic environment, in which responses to emerging threats are often time-critical, our traditional work practices and technology applications are not sufficient to achieve the multi-faceted collaborative analysis required for continued success. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is teaming with the Defense Intelligence Agency to build a common collaborative workspace for Intelligence Community (IC) analysts. This common work environment, called A-Space, will give analysts shared access to corporate data and to numerous databases maintained by individual IC organizations. It will allow individual or collaborative analysis of that data, with an emphasis on researching answers to consumer requests and expanding collective knowledge about assigned subjects. Configured as a special enclave within the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS), A-Space is accredited to handle information in the Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Control System and Gamma Information Handling (HCS/G) regimes.

How can A-Space help us? A-Space helps analysts connect with data and colleagues across the Community — more quickly, easily, and efficiently. It is designed to give analysts access to a large and diverse corpus of text, graphics, imagery, and video intelligence spanning multiple classification levels with appropriate controls. IC elements will be able to make internal databases accessible to A-Space, and programs such as the Library of National Intelligence (LNI) and Catalyst will enhance the ability of analysts to sort through this information to identify the most relevant intelligence.

A-Space’s workspaces allow analysts to maintain situational awareness, consolidate relevant data and analytic notes on topics of interest, and share their insights and intuitions in a trusted environment. A-Space will provide the shortest, fastest path to IC expertise and emerging intelligence insights, allowing analysts to collaborate early in the analytic process.

The most transformational aspect of A-Space is analysts’ ability to post emerging insight during the course of their research — sharing their findings in a way that allows peers and mentors to see and comment on analytic work in progress. The resultant interaction is expected to enhance the quality of analysis by facilitating identification of alternative hypotheses, drawing analysts’ attention to key assumptions, pointing to additional corroborating or conflicting data, and fostering collective assessments of source reliability. The accumulation of peer-reviewed knowledge will allow the Community for the first time to manage its collective knowledge about key intelligence topics without the constraints (length and content) associated with finished products.

What is happening with A-Space? A-Space is now being deployed for operational use by a gradually expanding the number of analysts. The deployment is incorporating many of the 400 requirements generated during preliminary user testing in early 2008. A-Space will be open to 9,000 analysts in late September 2008 and work is already beginning on improvements to be made in 2009. �

CatalystLinking Disparate and Dispersed Data to Aid Intelligence

Discovery, Analysis, and Warning

What is Catalyst?Catalyst is a program to enable analysts to make discoveries in large amounts of intelligence data without succumbing to information overload. It uses metadata to correlate information from diverse intelligence sources (multi-INT), without attempting to fuse all of the original intelligence directly — the original data being too voluminous and too sensitive to combine and share directly. Catalyst will operate upon tagged entities such as person names and place names — recognizable items within the flood of intelligence — and expose this metadata to algorithms that link related entities across an Intelligence Community (IC) pool of shared metadata.

The foundation for Catalyst is in place today in the form of individual programs across the IC that are beginning to tag key items such as time, locations, and person names in the raw intelligence, and in programs that are beginning to link that metadata across holdings within discrete IC organizations. Catalyst drives the development of standards for tagging and provides services of common concern to pool, compare, and protect the metadata used by multiple IC elements. It also correlates the entities in that larger pool of information on behalf of all participating IC elements.

How can Catalyst help us? Catalyst will introduce an all-source data-linking process into the traditional intelligence business model. Operating between the two major functions of data collection and data analysis, it will correlate the intelligence available from all organizations and give the indexed linkages back to each agency, so that analysts and collectors both can make more efficient and comprehensive discoveries of critical new pieces of information.

While pursuing the long-range goal, the Catalyst program is also delivering several early benefits. Simply establishing the initiative has prompted a coalition of IC project leaders to begin identifying key standards to be developed or adopted and their work is fostering more uniformity in the tagging of raw intelligence. They are also aligning project plans in preparation for the day when their decentralized projects will be able to incorporate the rich linkages identified by the Catalyst central service. This improves prospects for sharing best practices in the near term, as projects in different organizations become more effectively aligned.

What is happening with Catalyst?A scaling experiment has been completed to support the design of common services for the Community. A multi-INT experiment is underway to address bureaucratic issues required for the secure sharing of metadata, and to quantify the expected gains in pooling data from multiple IC elements. A common semantic ontology is being developed for uniformly expressing the attributes of key entities and their linkages across the Community. Architectural work is being done to prepare for connections between Catalyst operations and other integrated Community operations — including the indexing of content in the Library of National Intelligence, and improved search and discovery of A-Space corporate knowledge. In 2010, the DNI plans to issue contracts to build Catalyst services of common concern.

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Integrated Collection and AnalysisRequirements System (ICARS)

Connecting the Community’s Collection Requirements Management Systems

What is ICARS?The Integrated Collection and Analysis Requirements System (ICARS) brings together the collection and analysis elements of U.S. Intelligence to ensure that limited collection assets are used in the optimum way to address the most important information gaps. The program provides a common environment for nominating gaps, researching whether those gaps are already being covered by existing collection requirements, and, if not, enabling the creation of new requirements for submission to any of the diverse collectors supporting the intelligence mission. The ICARS service also provides the means for analysts and managers to determine the status of actions being taken by collectors to validate, execute, and satisfy the requirements. Accessed on the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System (JWICS) via a web browser, ICARS consists of a home page and four simple services enabling users to perform the above functions.

How can ICARS help us? ICARS allows analysts to save time by tweaking existing intelligence requirements to specify their needs for information, rather than crafting wholly new requests. It also promotes more sophisticated requests, as each analyst is able to see the questions being posed by colleagues working on overlapping subjects. ICARS also creates the potential to avoid unnecessary cost and risk when collectors are asked for information that colleagues can provide from existing files. By providing a common entry point for requirements to be developed for all the different specialized collection methods, ICARS creates an environment that facilitates integrated multi-INT collection planning, rather than issuing requirements to only one or another of the Community’s collection organizations.

What is happening with ICARS?ICARS was deployed as a pilot in August 2008 to test and refine the core services available to the analytic community. There is a service for creating and managing initial statements of intelligence information needs, and a service for validating those requests and for translating them into the requirements specific to individual collection organizations that specialize in imagery or signals collection or clandestine HUMINT. Based on the success of this pilot, the program will work with collectors to establish continual information exchange with each of the internal requirements-management systems supporting collectors. Work has begun in the collection community to prepare capabilities for connecting ICARS to collection programs via a standardized web service.

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IntellipediaCollaboration through Wikis

What is Intellipedia?Intellipedia is the Intelligence Community’s (IC) version of the world’s user-annotated online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Intellipedia enables collaborative drafting of short articles, which can be combined to form lengthy documents, all using a simple interface in a web browser. This service and its contents are available at three classification levels: ▪ Intellipedia on Intelink (Intellipedia-TS) is at the Top Secret/SI/TK//NOFORN level and resides on the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System (JWICS), ▪ Intellipedia on Intelink-S (Intellipedia-S) is at the Secret//NOFORN level and resides on the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), and ▪ Intellipedia on Intelink-U (Intellipedia-U) supports the use of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI).

How can Intellipedia help us? Intellipedia offers the IC a collaborative environment where analysts in diverse locations can work together, in a near-simultaneous fashion, on common projects. It also records all changes, making it simple to review the analytic evolution of an assessment as well as ascribe credit for insight provided by specific analysts.

Unlike A-Space, which provides an enclave viewable only to intelligence officers, Intellipedia is available to consumers for their own use and participation. Intellipedia thus gives the Community an environment for experimenting with new products and services for consumers and a venue to try out new arrangements for Community-consumer interaction. The capacity for broad experimentation that Intellipedia enables at a Community level makes this initiative an important element of Analytic Transformation which deviates from traditional work practices sufficiently to necessitate substantial experimentation across organizational boundaries.

What is happening with Intellipedia?Intellipedia has over 40,000 registered users and 349,000 active pages. Elements are exploring the collaborative capabilities already available with Intellipedia:

▪ Intellipedia-U was used during the June 2008 Midwest Floods to disseminate information across the Homeland Security Community, ▪ Intellipedia-TS was chosen for use by analysts across the Intelligence Community in covering the Beijing Olympics, and ▪ The most visited site on Intellipedia-TS — with over 1,297,000 views — is the Pacific Command Joint Intelligence Operations Center portal where all intelligence products for the command are posted.

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National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF)

Focusing the IC on Priority Issues

What is the National Intelligence Priorities Framework?The National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF) is a means to capture issues of critical interest to senior Intelligence Community (IC) customers and communicating those issues to the IC for action. The NIPF consists of a dialogue with the senior policy community, a matrix of intelligence priorities, and written guidance to the Community explaining critical information needs associated with the priorities in the matrix.

The NIPF is updated semi-annually. It is used by senior IC leaders to guide and inform decisions concerning the allocation of collection and analytic resources as well as the prioritization of collection requirements.

How can the NIPF help us? The NIPF enables the IC to understand the issues of critical interest to senior IC customers. It is the definitive statement of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on intelligence priorities, and therefore, provides the IC with a common foundation from which IC managers can make collection and analytic resource decisions.

The IC also tags raw intelligence and finished analysis based on NIPF topics, countries, and non-state actors. This tagging is a key feature in the Library of National Intelligence that enables elements to track and assess their activities against NIPF priorities and enables the IC to track its collective performance against critical issues over time.

What is happening with the NIPF? Over the last year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has made several improvements to the process for developing national intelligence priorities. For example, the DNI has engaged in a more fulsome dialogue with senior policy customers on issues that matter most to them. The ODNI has also undertaken substantial efforts to downgrade or eliminate previously designated priorities in the matrix in order to sharpen the IC’s focus on the nation’s top priorities.

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Analytic Mission Management (AMM)Managing the Analysis Mission More Effectively at the Community Level

What is Analytic Mission Management?The Analytic Mission Management (AMM) office’s key functions are to identify knowledge gaps across the analytic community on priority intelligence targets and collaborate with the collectors to close knowledge gaps. AMM also tracks and assesses the analytic community’s coverage of and posture against priority targets.

Why do we need Analytic Mission Management?Prior to the formation of AMM, there was no Intelligence Community (IC)-wide information on how analytic resources are arrayed that resulted in a lack of necessary information on how best to manage those resources. In addition, there was inadequate collaboration between the analysis and collection communities.

How can Analytic Mission Management help us? The work done by AMM provides insights to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Community as a whole on how the IC’s analytic resources are being used in relation to the intelligence priorities as designated by the DNI for senior policymakers. AMM’s work supports effective management of the Community so that resources are directed at the highest priority targets.

What is happening with Analytic Mission Management?In May 2008, the DNI issued Version 8 of the National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF) matrix, which AMM maintains. The NIPF is the document that informs the IC of policymaker priorities, so the IC can allocate collection and analysis resources in line with those priorities.

AMM is playing a critical role in the National Intelligence Coordination Center (NIC-C), which is the DNI’s coordinating body for collection in the intelligence, defense, and homeland security organizations. AMM works with the National Intelligence Officers (NIOs) to ensure that the top analytic priorities are transmitted to the NIC-C so that analysis drives collection. AMM also works with the NIOs in carrying out their duties under Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 207 that assigns to NIOs mission management responsibilities for places and problems for which there is no other DNI-designated Mission Manager.

AMM conducted a semi-annual data call for the Analytic Resources Catalog (ARC) in the spring of 2008. The ARC is a database with information about the current assignments, skills, and experience of the more than 18,000 analysts in the IC. AMM is also working to integrate the ARC with A-Space, an Analytic Transformation initiative providing a collaborative space for analysts on the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS).

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Rapid Analytic Support and Expeditionary Response (RASER)

Joint Ready Response Meeting Challenges

What is RASER?Rapid Analytic Support and Expeditionary Response (RASER) is a program to create multidisciplinary teams of Intelligence Community (IC) analysts trained and equipped with the leadership skills, analytic tools, tradecraft, and mission processes to meet complex analytic challenges. This expeditionary analysis program is designed to develop joint “ready-response” analytic teams to support U.S. missions and surge requirements by providing innovative analytic strategies, accelerating actionable intelligence in a fast-paced environment, and advising collection efforts for hard problems.

How can RASER help us? RASER serves as one IC model for building interagency, multidisciplinary analytic teams that inculcate leadership, collaboration, and Community values through a clear and compelling mission-focused agenda. In an increasingly complex and dynamic national security environment, these teams will be capable of rapid deployment worldwide to provide a focused capability to support broader efforts, including responding to a variety of critical needs for a diverse customer base.

The teams test innovative analytic training, tools, and tradecraft that can be applied to improve and bolster existing processes and tools. The RASER program will help the IC identify and retain talented people motivated by the challenge of being part of something demanding and unique. RASER analysts will achieve greater insight into IC capabilities and resources than their peers and undergo a challenging training curriculum designed to foster teaming and leadership abilities and develop the confidence to operate outside of established support structures. Graduates will return to their home organizations with significantly expanded skill sets.

In an important sense, RASER is an experiment. While providing real intelligence support in areas of critical need, the program is fundamentally testing a hypothesis: that special joint training and development of this sort can compress the learning that normally requires many years for analysts to accomplish via traditional training and assignments into a single year. The experiment will yield insight that will help the Community design training and development for a much larger set of intelligence officers.

What is happening with RASER?RASER analysts are currently supporting U.S. missions on analytic hard problems in Southwest Asia and Latin America, and are preparing for deployments to Africa. The second RASER team, recruited in 2007, completed analytic “boot camp” in May 2008 and is rotating between training assignments at various national security and law enforcement organizations. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has begun canvassing the IC for qualified candidates for the 2008 RASER team, and will commence the next analytic “boot camp” in late autumn.

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Summer Hard Problem Program (SHARP)Collaborative Investigation in Action

What is SHARP?SHARP (Summer Hard Problem Program) is an intensive four-week program that engages experts on intractable problems of significant national interest. The SHARP program participants generally include 15 federal government subject matter experts and 15 professionals from industry, academia, and state and local law enforcement. Participants collectively advance the state of knowledge about the chosen topic. They also hone their analytic skills through research, simulation, lectures, and peer interactions while being immersed in a creative environment that focuses on information sharing and exposure to diverse perspectives.

Each session culminates in delivering an integrated, multi-disciplinary set of findings to the Director of National Intelligence which captures the sophisticated thinking and research of a unique set of experts. The document highlights key judgments and offers insight regarding potential implications and possible options for innovative follow-up.

How can SHARP help us? SHARP enhances the Intelligence Community’s (IC) ability to counter national security threats by identifying novel approaches and innovative solutions to analysis and collection challenges. The relationships developed at SHARP form a foundation for future professional collaboration and the continual exchange of insights vital to national security.

What is happening with SHARP?In the summer of 2006, SHARP studied the intelligence implications of factors that cause individuals and communities of interest to coalesce into pro-social, anti-social, terrorist, or extra-legal movements. In the summer of 2007, SHARP produced findings on two subjects: Information Technology and Non-Democratic Societies, and Threat Evolution from Overseas to the U.S.: Patterns of Criminality and Terrorism.

In the summer of 2008, SHARP examined the potential threat of nefarious use of biological threat agents by individuals or small groups operating within a legitimate organization — and explored possible indicators that might reveal such activity. The second session explored ways in which the national security community might seek to understand the state of threats and opportunities posed by 3D virtual worlds, “Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games” (MMORPGs), and simulations. Participants in this session produced a groundbreaking short video, available on Intellipedia, to convey their findings.

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Analytic Resources Catalog (ARC) and Analyst Yellow Pages

Connecting Analysts and Contributing to Better-Informed Management of the Analytic Community

What are the Analytic Resources Catalog and Analyst Yellow Pages?The Analytic Resources Catalog (ARC) is a database maintained by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that captures basic contact data on Intelligence Community (IC) analysts as well as information on the skills, expertise, and experience of individual analysts. The ARC can be queried for answers to questions such as “how many analysts have more than five years experience working a particular country, and relevant language skills and in-country experience?”

The Analyst Yellow Pages is a classified, web-based phonebook derived from the ARC that contains contact information for analysts across the IC. An analyst working on Iran and Weapons of Mass Destruction, for example, can search the Analyst Yellow Pages to find a list of names, phone numbers, and email addresses of other analysts working on that topic. This feature is available to anyone who has access to the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System (JWICS).

How can the Analytic Resources Catalog and Analyst Yellow Pages help us? Prior to the formation of the ODNI, there was no common, integrated repository that captured the number of analysts in the Community and their years of experience, where they worked, and what issues they worked. In addition, there was no easy way for analysts to find their counterparts.

With the ARC, the ODNI has been able to map how analytic resources are arrayed across the Community. Such information is critical for managing the analytic community as an integrated enterprise. In addition, an outgrowth of the ARC, the Analyst Yellow Pages, is proving to be a significant collaboration and communication resource for analysts.

What is happening with the Analytic Resources Catalog and the Analyst Yellow Pages?The ODNI completed its most recent data call for the ARC in the spring of 2008, gathering updated data on approximately 18,000 IC analysts. The ARC data call also obtained data from participants from the Combatant Commands and from non-Title 50 organizations that wished to participate in the data call. The ARC is also a critical part of the development of A-Space, another ODNI/Analysis initiative, as analysts must have a profile in the ARC in order to be eligible to access A-Space. In addition, the ARC program is continuing to work with the ODNI Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO) to develop the Intelligence Community Capabilities Catalog (IC3), which uses the ARC concept to build a capabilities catalog for collectors, science and technology professionals, acquisition specialists, and other professionals in the IC.

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Tradecraft Training in Critical Thinking and

Structured AnalysisBuilding a Foundation for Analytic Success in a Joint Environment

What is this common analytic training about?Launched under the name “Analysis 101,” the common training in Critical Thinking and Structured Analysis (CTSA) is a deliberate effort to instill common norms, vocabularies, and methods in analysis across the Intelligence Community (IC). The joint training of intelligence analysts, initially sponsored within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by the Office of Analytic Integrity and Standards and the National Intelligence University, is being carried forward by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a service of common concern for the IC. It brings together new analysts from throughout the IC during their initial months on the job for two weeks of rigorous training in a truly joint environment. This experience equips students with the basic critical thinking and analytic skills necessary to meet the IC’s published Analytic Standards. It does so by concentrating on how critical thinking fosters best practices in analytic tradecraft.

Students examine the inter-related stages of the analytic process, discuss the many barriers and pitfalls (personal, organizational, technical, and environmental) that can impede it, and practice techniques that help overcome the obstacles and improve analytic rigor. A core component of the training is instruction and guided practice in thinking critically about the reasoning process.

How can the common training help us? Working closely with peers from other IC elements, new analysts acquire a common set of analytic skills and, perhaps most important, a joint perspective on the intelligence enterprise, equipping them to work as part of a more closely integrated community of analysts. The knowledge that colleagues across the Community have received the same training and are held to the same standards of critical thinking will enable analysts to have greater confidence when contemplating collaboration, or when reviewing the work of colleagues. Equally valuable, common training will give analysts from diverse intelligence organizations a shared frame of reference and a shared vocabulary for talking about areas in which they disagree, whether it be based on differing views of the reliability of the evidence or methods for translating data into analytic conclusions.

What is happening in the area of common analytic training? The Analysis 101 program has trained more than 650 analysts from 24 organizations. A new, two-week format has been launched, and is running every two weeks throughout the year, with the exception of major holiday periods. The program will accommodate training for 1,320 analysts over the course of 2009. Planning is underway to transition the program to the DIA at the start of fiscal year 2009.

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Analytic Standards Common Standards for Evaluating the Quality of Analysis

What are Analytic Standards?Analytic Standards govern the production and evaluation of national intelligence analysis. The standards are intended to guide the writing of intelligence analysis in all Intelligence Community (IC) analytic elements and should be included in analysis teaching modules and case studies. The following five core principles serve as the nucleus of analytic standards:

▪ Objectivity ▪ Independent of political considerations ▪ Timeliness ▪ Informed by all relevant sources of information ▪ Demonstrates proper standards of analytic tradecraft

The Office of Analytic Integrity and Standards (AIS) within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is constantly working to build a network of analysts interested in learning new methods, connecting with other analysts using structured techniques, and learning from methodological experts both inside and outside of the IC.

How can Analytic Standards help us? Common standards across the IC leave no room for ambiguity, and provide clear, consistent guidance to analysts, managers, and trainers for the production of analytic products and processes. The five core principles set the standard by which analytic products can be measured using quantitative and qualitative methods.

What is happening with Analytic Standards? AIS provides continuous feedback to IC elements on the quality of analytic tradecraft and recently published a report analyzing a sample of over 1,500 of the Community’s finished intelligence products from 2006 and 2007. To promote continuous learning and improvement, each IC analytic element is developing or refining its own in-house analytic tradecraft evaluation program to further advance understanding of the analytic standards and how to apply them.

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Executive Intelligence Summary (EIS)A Daily Web-Based Compendium of Intelligence Community (IC)

Finished Analytic Products

What is EIS?The Executive Intelligence Summary (EIS) is a daily, web-based compendium developed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System (JWICS). It summarizes relevant, high-quality finished analytic products from across the Intelligence Community (IC) and organized by either issue or region.

The EIS is produced each weekday morning by the ODNI and presents articles spanning daily IC publications such as the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Intelligence Review (CIA WIRe), the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) J2 Executive Highlights, and daily highlights from the National Security Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. It also draws from strategic assessments from the various analytic offices throughout the IC, including the National Intelligence Council, CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and contributions from service elements such as the National Ground Intelligence Center and military regional commands, as well as newer members of the IC such as the Drug Enforcement Administration.

How can EIS help us?Each day, the IC produces a large number of finished analytic products that are posted on various classified websites. In the past, these products were not available in a single location. Analysts, briefers, and customers had to go from site to site to find the products.

With the EIS, analysts, briefers, and customers can go to one website to see summaries of the articles for which they would have previously searched in different locations. From the summary, users can click on the hyperlinks to articles in which they are most interested and read the entire product.

What is happening with EIS? In the last year, a number of EIS improvements have been achieved. We have established automatic ingests of products from the European Command (Joint Intelligence Operations Center Europe) and Central Command. Currently, ODNI is working with the Department of Homeland Security to establish an automatic ingest of their products. Existing searches have been modified to get additional products from DIA and CIA. As a result, the breadth of regional and functional coverage of the EIS has widened. The increase in the number of contributors has resulted in contrasting analytic viewpoints from multiple IC elements analyzing the same issues. The EIS is an example of the ODNI using its role to provide a resource that benefits the entire Community.

For more information about the programs described here, contact the Office of the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis by e-mail at DNI-Analysis@ugov.gov.

Office of the Director of National Intelligence