Strategic Investment Plan for Intelligence Community AnalysisThis document, for the first time, lays out a ten-year Strategic Investment Plan for Intelligence Community Analysis (SIP). It outlines the goals and future requirements for the 11 agencies of the National Intelligence Production Board (NIPB) and the implementing actions—budgetary, procedural, and policy—that are needed to build and maintain the Intelligence Community’s core analytic capabilities. It specifies deliverables beginning in FY 2001.The plan looks at future analytic requirements across six pillars: investing in people; technology; intelligence priorities; customer support; interacting with collectors; and external analysis.
The information and recommendations presented here reflect the collaboration and consensus of the members of the NIPB, who helped collect and compile the data and facilitated the review of issues and current programs within their respective organizations. The result is an assessment of what it will take for the IC analytic community—in light of the anticipated national security and budgetary environments we will face in the coming decade—to realize the DCI’s vision for the United States Intelligence Community.
National Intelligence Production BoardNIPB_dfa8d1ac-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2aAssistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and ProductionThe NIPB, chaired by the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production (ADCI/AP), undertook this inaugural Strategic Investment Plan for Intelligence Community Analysis as a follow-on to an earlier effort to assess the analytic resources available to the US Intelligence Community to support its wide range of missions. Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Collection NIPB MemberDeputy Director of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency NIPB MemberDeputy Director for Analysis and Production, Defense Intelligence Agency NIPB MemberDeputy Assistant Secretary of State for Analysis, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State NIPB MemberAssistant Deputy Director of Operations for Analysis and Production, National Security AgencyNIPB MemberDirector of Imagery Analysis, National Imagery and Mapping Agency NIPB MemberDirector of the Office of Energy Intelligence, Department of Energy NIPB MemberInspector/Deputy Assistant Director, Intelligence Branch, Investigative ServicesNIPB MemberDirector of Foreign Intelligence, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Headquarters, Department of the Army NIPB MemberExecutive Director, Office of Naval Intelligence NIPB MemberAssociate Director for Intelligence, Directorate of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, Headquarters US Air Force NIPB MemberDirector, Marine Corps Intelligence Activity NIPB MemberDirector, Program Office for Community Analysis NIPB MemberExecutive SecretaryNIPB Member_dfa8d6de-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a_dfa8da80-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2aPeopleTo build and maintain a diverse work force that is second to none in its analytic discipline, regional and technical expertise, collection mastery, intellectual rigor, communications skills and knowledge of consumers’ needs._dfa8dbd4-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a1Desired Outcomes:
FY 2005
•Joint and Community-wide training and education programs in language, analytic trade-craft, management, and collection disciplines: National Intelligence Academy.
•Acquire designated training positions to allow ten percent of analysts to be in training or developmental assignments at any given time.
•Community database cataloging analytic skills and capabilities across the IC is in place and maintained.
•A systematic, empirical methodology in place to determine current and future analytic resource requirements.
•Staffing goals established that include "bench strength" to ensure opportunities for training and development.
•Coordinated, coherent, needs-based analytic career development system in place at each organization.
•Analytic work force routinely participates in professionally enhancing rotational assignments.
•Flexible recruitment policies established.
•Expert analyst corps established across agencies to permit promotion to executive positions.
•Metrics embedded in training to capture improvement and determine return on investment.
•Established goals or defined measures of success in place with regard to work force diversity.
FY 2010
•Robust IC training program for managers and analysts in National Intelligence Academy.
•Tiered staffing system in place for depth and breadth.
•Management uses IC skills database to match peoples’ skills, knowledge, and expertise to meet priorities, identify gaps, determine hiring/recruitment requirements and training curricula.
•Substantial rotational opportunities in place for analysts to serve in government, industry, academia, and overseas.
•Clear management accountability for analytic career development.
•Analytic training and education requirements drive program development.Training and Career DevelopmentEstablish a robust IC training and career development program, identifying common training requirements, supporting the “virtual university” concept and developing options for a National Intelligence Academy for IC training and education. _dfa8dd00-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a1.1The NIPB will develop requirements for an interagency analytic training program with required curriculum and designated training positions. This will provide for increased joint training opportunities and a back-fill capability that allows all IC analysts to engage in needed developmental experiences. Coherent career development systems that link training, education, and assignments will support analysts at all stages of their careers.
Implementing Action:
•Develop common training requirements for management, analytic tradecraft, and collection disciplines familiarization by FY 2001.
•Acquire designated training positions in future years to allow ten percent of the analytic work force to fulfill training and education requirements.
•Replace the conglomerate of training courses and career development programs with a coherent career system.
Most analytic organizations understandably stress mission-related activities over career development and training. To ensure the latter areas receive the attention they deserve at a Community level, the NIPB should direct establishment of an IC forum under its auspices to work training and career development issues. In addition to NIPB members, others, such as human resources and training specialists, should be invited to participate.
Implementing Actions:
•Establish an NIPB sub-committee for career development and training and to begin exploring options for a National Intelligence Academy.
•Support the development of a web-based “virtual university.”
•Evaluate/implement the findings of the ADCI/AP analytic training needs assessment.
•Ensure funding for, access to, quality training/education, and assignments to build expertise.Recruitment, Hiring, Staffing, and RetentionAdopt innovative recruitment, hiring, staffing, and retention strategies to build expertise._dfa8de7c-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a1.2Building an analytic work force for the 21st century requires adopting a new business paradigm or model for recruitment, hiring, and staffing. This not only includes establishing market-driven pay categories for hard-to-fill occupations, but also adopting more flexible personnel management policies and regulations. Currently, most Intelligence analysts are recruited and hired at entry level. However, some issue areas can only be addressed by analysts with specialized skills and expertise. When home-grown expertise is insufficient, the IC must be prepared to pay market rates to hire outside analysts at what are normally regarded as senior positions. Although there would not be many such hires and they would not necessarily remain to complete a career in intelligence, they might be the only way to acquire the in-depth knowledge and high degree of expertise that is required to tackle some of the more difficult problems. Ideally, such high entry-level positions would be time-limited appointments, to be extended and renewed as required.
Implementing Actions:
•Establish market-driven pay categories to recruit/compensate analysts in highly competitive skill areas.
•Increase senior- and executive-level hiring.
•Expand use of time-limited appointments.
•Expand tiered work force: a mix of long-term careerists, short-term employees (two to five years), and annuitants/contractors/consultants.
Rotational assignments, if designed and tailored to allow analysts to continue working in a useful knowledge area, can be one of the most important and rewarding components of career development. To build and sustain expertise, rotational assignments must meet the criterion of either enhancing an analyst’s knowledge of a core specialty or providing broadening insights into a complementary discipline. Expansion of the Community’s rotational partnerships with the private sectors, academia and other government agencies is especially important for the S&T analytic work force.
Implementing Action:
•Establish expertise-building or -broadening rotational assignments (overseas programs, partnerships with academia/private sector).
Career progression as an analyst in the Intelligence Community must include the ability to reach senior ranks without having to transition to management, if a strong cadre of analysts with sustained expertise is to be developed. Over the next decade, NIPB organizations should increase the number of senior positions open to analysts.
Implementing Action:
•Conduct annual reviews of all senior/executive positions to develop appropriate balance.
Career patterns of many types of employees entering the US work force over the next decade will be characterized by greater mobility than those of their predecessors, and this trend is likely to affect the Intelligence Community as well. We must be prepared for, and, in many cases, embrace a segment of the work force that will transition back and forth between the private sector and government. These employees will take responsibility for their own job satisfaction and may be attracted to the IC by the opportunity to obtain skills and knowledge that they may not be able to acquire if their career spanned only government, industry, or academia.
Implementing Action:
•Develop flexible personnel security policies to accomplish missions and protect secret amidst less fixed work force patterns.Work Force and SkillsAdopt empirical methodologies to determine requirements for analytic work force size and skill mix._dfa8e016-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a1.3Much of the effort to determine knowledge requirements and identify areas for investment has to be based on accurate personnel and skills data. In addition, we must be able to discern which of the analytic community’s core missions require continuous in-depth expertise and should be performed by an in-house work force, which can be fulfilled by employing various types of external expertise, and which need a combination of Community and outside resources to meet analytic requirements.
Implementing Actions:
•Perform an IC-wide needs assessment to determine the appropriate size of the analytic community. (Consider growth in personnel costs; allowances for training/surge; generalists vs. specialists; long- and short-term employees and contractors; in-house and external expertise balance.)
•Continue funding to develop agency and IC skills databases. Work Force DiversityDevelop and effectively manage a diverse analytic work force. _dfa8e192-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a1.4If we are to retain our capability to provide our customers with a decisive information advantage, we must, according to the DCI, “learn to recognize diversity as the valuable asset that it is.” The corporate world has already determined that diversity means profits, and we can also realize intellectual dividends if we know how to get the most out of a diverse work force. This means not only intensively recruiting women, minorities, and the disabled, but also ensuring that we have policies, practices, and procedures in place to ensure that all employees achieve their full potential. We cannot afford to waste the talent of even one employee—much less entire groups of analysts.
Our training, career development, and staffing strategies must be optimized to ensure that we use the talents of all members of the work force to their fullest extent. Managers and leaders must be held accountable for the growth, development, and progression of all analysts. We must ensure that analysts with different views and perspectives are full players in the analytic process at all levels.
Implementing Actions:
•ADCI/AP sponsor a review conducted by outside experts to determine causes of under-representation.
•Develop specific strategies to address causes and barriers and establish accountability for fixing them.
•Establish goals and define measures of success.
•ADCI/AP conduct an annual review to monitor progress on: representation, training, education, compensation, assignments, promotions, etcTechnologyTo make available to analysts commercially developed or customized collaborative integration and analytic tools that will support the best quality and most timely analysis possible, with due consideration to cost and security; to provide analysts and customers seamless access to data, information, and expertise in a total knowledge management environment._dfa8e4bc-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a2Desired Outcomes:
FY 2005
•Fully interoperable collaborative tools deployed across the IC and to key outside experts.
•Collaboration environment shared with collectors to facilitate tasking and feedback.
•Customers have full access to collaborative and knowledge management environments if they desire.
•Digital production allows dynamic updating of a living knowledge repository.
•Object-oriented user interface for all major data stores, fully linked to visualization tools.
•Analytic and cognitive tools for all analysts to organize information and visualize connections.
•Pilot capability for rapid multi-discipline data fusion/integration and dissemination.
FY 2010
•Synchronous tools allow secure collaboration with experts any time from anywhere.
•Fully interoperable data stores make sharing information seamless within the IC.
•A dynamic knowledge base is fully accessible from anywhere at any time by authorized users.
•Knowledge base linkage to collectors with information needs/gaps automatically identified.
•Single search using natural language prioritized responses, with visualization tools.
•Smart push and pull, automated summarization and database population reduces filtering task.
•Cognitive tools will assist analysts in conceptualizing, testing, and substantiating analysis.
•Robust capability for geographic, temporal, and phenomenological near-real-time data fusion, integrated analysis, and dissemination.CollaborationFully stand up an IC collaboration center to provide practical guidance and assistance in deploying collaborative pilots and expand- ing them Community-wide._dfa8e688-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a2.1Collaboration will require a consistent and costly effort to deploy collaborative tools and focus on overcoming cultural and business process obstacles. We need to link analysts to collectors, customers, and forward-deployed analysts in a collaborative environment by 2005.
Implementing Actions:
•Establish an IC collaboration center, under an executive agent, with contractor and Intelligence Community staffing, to lay out a road map to move from pilots to enterprise and IC-wide deployment. The center will focus on integrating programs, technology, improved processes, and human resources across the enterprise to meet the challenges of federated, knowledge management in a collaborative environment; mapping, testing, and recommending improvements to community analysis and production processes in key business areas; identifying metrics and codifying best practices; and, facilitating the integration of advanced analytic tools and methods into production processes.
•Fund and study additional collaboration pilots through FY 2003, with a view to migrating toward common IC standards that will allow interoperability.
•Pursue more extensive interoperability testing of current tools and identify a strategy for providing IC-wide collaboration by FY 2003.
•Advance security issues to enable collaborative analysis during FY 2001.
•Deploy collaborative tools within NIPB programs to create a critical mass of experienced users. By FY 2003, tools should be available on the desktops of all analysts in the large national analytic agencies, and should be available to all NIPB analysts by FY 2005. DatabasesRreduce cultural and technology barriers to data sharing._dfa8e890-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a2.2The Intelligence Community needs to start immediately reducing cultural and technology barriers to data sharing. NIPB and Community organizations are already taking several initiatives to advance database interoperability.
Implementing Actions:
•Commit NIPB organizations to interoperable database development and line up their participation in an IC database forum. Establish a baseline inventory of databases critical for analysts to access and share.
•Identify some pilot efforts to improve sharing of data.
•Form a working group to frame an NIPB-wide approach to addressing the resource issue of coping with new data sources, both classified and open source.
•Identify the National Intelligence Council (NIC) as a community testbed for digital production processes on Community products beginning in FY 2001. Candidates include the full range of NIC products.
•Support IC efforts to make finished intelligence and database information more accessible.
•Endorse the Defense Intelligence community’s efforts to improve fill rates and make military databases easier to use and access across the IC. Look into how to integrate similar efforts at NSA and CIA to make sure the most comprehensive and up-to-date information is accessible across the NIPB.Analytic ToolsDeploy analytic tools to help analysts deal with the flood of new and existing sources of information._dfa8ea70-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a2.3Deploying analytic tools to help analysts deal with the flood of new and existing sources of information by 2005 will require an expensive and focused effort. To manage this process the NIPB needs a plan that includes the following elements.
Implementing Actions:
•Identify executive agents for key technology efforts to conserve resources and reduce stovepipe approaches over the FYDP. This step needs to be taken immediately to better coordinate efforts in an area where many informal exchange mechanisms now exist.
•Designate the new IC collaboration center as a central clearinghouse for efforts in tool development and deployment and for lessons learned. Include an approach to accelerate analytic tool deployment in a road map that the cell will develop for IC-wide efforts in FY 2001.
•Focus the IC’s research and development (R&D) strategy on supporting analytic tool requirements, providing a study in late 2000 on how the commercial sector deals with analogous problems, and suggesting some lessons learned that would apply to the IC.
•Conduct a study in FY 2001 of the level of effort required for analytic tools over the next ten years, to be incorporated into the collaboration road map in time for inclusion in FY 2003 budgets.
•Develop a seal of approval program to encourage the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) rather than government off-the-shelf (GOTS) whenever possible.
•Provide adequate funds through FY 2010 to support full-scale deployment of highly capable analytic tools, many not yet developed for the commercial sector, that will be needed to search the huge volume of existing data stores and new sources that will be arriving at the analysts’ workstations.
•Support and expand technological innovation associated with data fusion algorithms and processes across all collection and analytic disciplines.
•Closely track the new tools and concepts that will emerge from the R&D sector and work closely with this sector, helping to steer its current efforts.Intelligence PrioritiesTo foster development of coherent strategies to establish substantive priorities that meet the competing demands of policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement officials for current intelligence, long-term analysis, and strategic warning, and to provide collectors with more specific requirements guidance._dfa8ec6e-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a3Desired Outcomes:
FY 2005
•An improved priorities process to deal with potential crises.
•Requirements guidance to collectors is specific enough to support collection tasking systems.
•DCI launches fully resourced IC strategic assessments component.
•The DCI priorities framework is hosted continuously on web-based software, with analysts, collectors, and consumers having access to the system.
FY 2010
•Quarterly reviews of automated nationallevel priorities by the analytic community occur.
•Comprehensive processes are established to identify potential crises and conduct oversight to ensure appropriate analytic and collection responses.
•A National Strategic Estimates Center is established, with full policymaker participation and financial support.
•The IC can meet all demands for strategic analysis by policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement officials.
•IC strategic warning integrates policy and defense communities in an Intelligence Community program supported by full-time methodologists and gaming experts.
•Full electronic collaboration on prioritization of tasking, production, and dissemination exists.Scientific and Technological TrendsStrengthen the role of the DCI production committees in projecting scientific and technological trends._dfa8ee80-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a3.1Community Warning OrganizationsExpand the mandate of Community warning organizations to include a leading role in competitive and alternative analysis on issues of critical concern._dfa8f0a6-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a3.2Intelligence Community Web SiteSponsor a classified Intelligence Community web site, incorporating the daily production of the NIPB agencies to promote collaboration and reduce redundancy._dfa8f2cc-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a3.3Customer Support To provide our consumers with the best, custom-tailored intelligence whenever and wherever they need it, to develop more rational business processes that will help us better distribute the production burden, and to enhance our ability to evaluate our performance against standards of analytic tradecraft and the needs of our consumers._dfa8f52e-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a4Desired Outcomes:
FY 2005
•Improvements in web-based technologies, development of communities of interest, and advances in security lead to better tasking, tracking, and dissemination of product.
•Common methodologies adopted for evaluating product/customer satisfaction; ADCI/AP producing annual report that evaluates our performance on key analytic issues.
•Coordination on current production increases through use of digital production.
FY 2010
•A seamless production environment means customer requests are easily tracked; on-line communication with customer is interactive; multiple security domains and communities of interest working smoothly.
•Community evaluation program well-established; common methodologies provide useful trend data.
•Joint Program of Community Analysis results in better distribution of labor.Evaluation MethodsDevelop better and more consistent methods for evaluating our products and measuring how well we are satisfying customer needs._dfa8f7ae-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a4.1Without a good program for evaluating our collection and analysis, we cannot speak with any degree of confidence about how well we are or are not hitting the mark. Without such a program, we also miss an opportunity to make studied judgments about our activities and what we can do to improve our collection and analytic posture. We simply cannot continue to rely on anecdotal evidence, data that can not be replicated, and statistics that are questionable and inconsistent across the community. (See also Interacting with Collectors chapter.)
Implementing Actions:
•Work with collection community to develop single evaluation process that incorporates both collection and analysis. Initiate a Community-wide evaluation process on core issues to be presented to the DCI as an annual report. Conduct a first-year pilot on two or three issues. Review pilot for lessons learned, adjust program. Begin full-scale evaluations by FY 2001.
•Establish blue ribbon panels—ideally a mix of insiders and outsiders—under the purview of the ADCI/AP to conduct evaluations of event-driven production. Panel members would vary depending on the issue involved. Studies would be initiated at the behest of the ADCI/AP, in consultation with the NIPB. In addition to assessing performance, these evaluations would include les sons learned and recommendations.
•Explore electronic audit trails and other electronic “survey” measures to encourage customer feedback; more accurately deter mine customer usage, productivity, and timeliness, relevance, and quality of product; and obtain other useful statistics. Investigate possible procedural, legal, and security issues connected with use of audit trail data.
•Learn how web-based businesses measure customer satisfaction and determine what we might profitably emulate.Digital Production and Community CollaborationAccelerate digital production efforts and increase Community collaboration in tracking customer requests, measuring productivity, sharing information, and developing tools that make it easier for customers to navigate our knowledge warehouses. _dfa8fa06-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a4.2Connectivity and collaborative tools are absolutely essential to make progress in sup porting our customers, speeding dissemination of our products, tracking customer demand and productivity, and reducing unnecessary duplication of effort. The Technology chapter of this investment plan deals with these issues in greater detail. We can, however, point to some specific steps here to help realize the customer support objectives highlighted above.
Implementing Actions:
•Migrate digital production technology and tools to agency offices that produce daily publications and to the National Intelligence Council (NIC) as a first priority—ensuring, at minimum, that systems are interoperable. Share best practices and lessons learned in digital production.
•Strengthen the current electronic tracking mechanisms employed by various agencies to ensure that they adequately register customer needs at the front end, track responses at the back end, and capture information in production warehouses so that it can be recovered and reused by customers and other analysts. Share best practices. Look for solutions that are, at a minimum, compatible.
•Cooperate in development of tools to help customers search for and retrieve information quickly.PublicationsRationalize production of current publications to reduce unnecessary duplication while preserving opportunities for competitive analysis where appropriate and needed. _dfa8fc7c-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a4.3Examine production responsibilities across the Community to ensure appropriate distribution of labor and to share the burden more effectively. We must find ways to cooperate on our analytic production and reduce the redundant flow of information reaching our customers—with out damaging our ability to engage in competitive analysis where useful. In doing so, we will not only serve our customers better, but also free up resources that are need ed to address other pressing problems.
Implementing Actions:
•Establish baseline of resources (dollars and manpower) devoted to production of daily publications across the Community and develop alternative approaches to Community collaboration—taking account of different customer sets, cost factors, existing and required technology/ connectivity, etc.
•Revitalize Community coordination process for current publications.
•Examine methods for ensuring that competitive analysis on key issues still finds a voice and is incorporated into daily publications.
•Initiate a Community Program of Analysis to rationalize areas of overlap and underlap. Focus especially on strategic studies.Interacting with CollectorsTo enhance communication and collaboration between the analytic and collection communities, to develop an integrated information needs/requirements process, to develop a rapid data integration capability, to help guide and inform future collection strategies and acquisitions within a fast-changing target environment. _dfa8fefc-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a5Desired Outcomes:
FY 2005
•National integrated intelligence requirements process that links or replaces existing community committees and cuts across disciplines.
•Integrated collection management tools and systems in transition or under development to improve visibility among collection managers, facilitate trade-offs, and provide the connectivity needed for efficient collection coordination among the various collection disciplines.
•Integrated strategies for exploitation of open source information.
•Comprehensive, community-wide evaluation program for analysis and collection.
•Analytic community engaged in decisions about requirements for future collection systems.
•Community-wide training to educate analysts about collection systems and capabilities and encourage greater analyst involvement in development of integrated strategies among the various collection disciplines.
FY 2010
•National requirements process running smoothly. Analysts have the tools and ability to task and monitor status of collection requests; improved integration and collection strategies among all collection disciplines are the norm.
•Cross-community evaluation tools provide Intelligence Community managers with data necessary to weigh trade-offs and make hard resource decisions.
•Collection training mandatory at several stages of analysts’ careers and collection-related rotations part of normal career progression.
•Effective open source strategies firmly established.
•Broad ranging, rapid integration and reporting from multiple sources in a virtual, collaborative network. Training ProgramEstablish a Community-wide training program to educate analysts on collection management and systems. _dfa901a4-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a5.1Our analysts must understand collectors’ needs, capabilities, and constraints to participate more actively in the collection process. Collection training should be made a mandatory part of the career progression for all analysts, and those who develop the requisite collection management skills should be recognized and rewarded professionally.
Implementing Actions:
•Evaluate existing collection training activities in the Community and baseline resources currently devoted to them. Identify best practices and/or centers of excellence. Establish an IC-wide curriculum on collection programs, building—where possible—on training already offered by individual agencies. Start with introductory courses and training for new recruits. Follow with advanced training on collection management and the development of collection strategies. Designate core courses that should be mandatory. Tie to “virtual university” initiative in Chapter 2 (Investing in People). Collection StrategiesStrengthen the role of analysts and promote collaboration with collectors in the development of collection strategies—including for open source information—and the acquisition of future collection capabilities._dfa90456-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a5.2Analysts and collectors must interact more closely in determining collection shortfalls, identifying future needs, and developing remedies to better guide collection and respond to intelligence gaps. This area is likely to require major resource investment, and we therefore need to take a hard look at how best to manage our resources. This involves examining existing efforts that use analysts to help in collection targeting and new initiatives designed to improve collection effectiveness through cross discipline planning and development of innovative collection methodologies.
Implementing Actions:
•Develop a comprehensive and focused open source strategy to exploit this growing—and increasingly important—source of information and expertise.
•Conduct a Community-wide review of ongoing efforts to improve collaboration between analysts and collectors. Identify best practices and lessons learned. Review possible new areas for analyst-collector interaction.
•Establish aggressive program in which analysts serve rotational tours in collection agencies and DCI centers specifically to work on collection targeting, strategy, and systems acquisition issues. Look for innovative approaches—including short-term rotations of one-, two-, or three-months’ duration. The objective is to complement collection training, enhance analyst-collector inter action, and provide real input on specific collection problems where most needed. ADCI/AP will work with the ADCI/C and others to identify issues/areas where analytic resources can be used most effectively.
•Benchmark additional analytic resources necessary to support collection-related activity (ADCI/AP action with input from NIPB agencies). Ensure that these activities are tied to any new national integrated intelligence requirements process.Collection Evaluation and Customer SatisfactionDevelop better methods for evaluating collection and measuring satisfaction of customer needs._dfa90758-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a5.3We must have an evaluation system that allows us to assess how well we are doing to satisfy our customers and fill intelligence gaps, and that helps us make informed decisions about difficult tradeoffs between collection platforms and future acquisition capabilities. This evaluative process must also help us accurately determine whether deficiencies are due to collection activities and capabilities themselves or to shortfalls in processing and exploitation of the information collected.
To do so, we need a set of complementary evaluation programs that provide micro-level data on satisfaction of specific requirements as well as macro-level data on performance across the collection disciplines; information on the performance of individual collection systems on both an absolute and relative basis, but also assessments of how we are doing as a Community to address critical needs. In other words, we need both broad-based studies that cut across issues and collection disciplines, and in-depth studies of single issues and individual collection disciplines. Finally, we need longitudinal studies that allow for trend analysis as well as narrowly focused studies that provide valuable "lessons learned" in collecting against specific targets or issues.
Implementing Actions:
•Establish a steering group under the chairmanship of the ADCI/AP to provide over sight of a Community-wide and multifaceted evaluation program. The steering group will oversee/monitor the efforts described below. ADCI/AP will provide an annual update to the DCI, DDCI/CM, and the NIPB on the overall evaluation effort.
•Advance the use of existing agency collection evaluation methodologies on the relative performance of collection systems and plat forms over time. Expand to include other organizations where appropriate.
•Review/build upon the recent effort of the ADCI/AP and ADCI/C in developing a joint annual report on the state of the Intelligence Community. This review should cut across agencies and be based on a consistent, repeatable methodology. It should provide an in-depth evaluation of how well we have performed in meeting customer needs and filling critical intelligence gaps on a series of key issues. It should take into account competing requirements and identify short falls in the collection, processing, and exploitation cycle. It should also provide actionable recommendations to overcome identified shortfalls.
•Appoint blue ribbon panels—ideally a mix of inside and outside experts—to prepare ad hoc "lessons learned" studies on event-driven issues or topics of critical concern to our customers.
•Establish a cross-agency working group to explore types of electronic feedback/evaluation mechanisms in use or planned as part of collection management systems currently under development (e.g., audit trails, site visit measures, pop-up screens, and mandatory versus voluntary evaluation menus). Cross-fertilize with activities underway in analytic organizations as part of production reengineering efforts. Evaluate commercial methods and software that might provide easy and consistent statistics across the Community on customer usage and satisfaction and on demand-to-response ratios for standing and ad hoc intelligence requirements. Requirements ProcessDevelop a National Integrated Intelligence Requirements Process._dfa90a3c-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a5.4We must establish a single process to integrate and prioritize requirements across disciplines and mission areas. Without such a process, collectors will be left to integrate and prioritize requirements within their separate stovepipes; the analytic community will continue to have poor visibility into the status of collection; the Intelligence Community will be deprived of a means to make efficient trade-offs across platforms and manage future acquisitions; and non-military national information requirements will continue to compete for collection satisfaction on an individual basis with the vast quantity of military requirements that are fully integrated and prioritized.
This process must allow Community analysts to submit, integrate, and prioritize information needs for all collectors and provide analysts and collectors visibility into the status of col lection through the entire tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination cycle. It must include a leadership entity with responsibility for adjudicating conflicts on intelligence priori ties; assuring balanced collection; identifying future requirements; and supporting strategic planning.
Implementing Actions:
•Build on recent studies to map the existing requirements process. Based on these stud ies, develop a framework and processes for integrating and prioritizing intelligence needs.
•Establish an Annual Integrated Information Requirements Plan that will provide prioritized direction to the ADCI for Collection’s annual plan for allocating collection. Marry this plan to software that will allow dynamic updating of priorities.
•Work with existing individual Community collection committees and/or mechanisms to provide: Community-recognized, integrated information priorities to the collectors; substantive guidance during surge situations; and integrated and prioritized future information needs to the new future requirements board.
•In conjunction with the above, monitor and support the pre-acquisition efforts of the integrated IC collection management system and of the agency requirements systems.ResourcesEnsure adequate resources for the processing and exploitation of collected intelligence._dfa90d48-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a5.5No matter how sophisticated or capable our collection systems are, they remain of little value if we are unable to process and exploit the information collected in a timely and focused fashion. Our capabilities in technical processing and exploitation of information have suffered in recent years from cuts in personnel and lack of investment in infrastructure and expertise-building. Fixing this problem must be a top priority for the entire Intelligence Community.
Implementing Actions:
•ADCI/AP work with NSA, NIMA, and others to ensure that analytic capabilities are addressed in agency-specific strategic plans and annual budget submissions.
•Ensure that investment in analytic tools development addresses needs of analysts in collection agencies, as well as those in other parts of the analytic community. Focus on tools that are interoperable and compatible across the Community. (Implementing actions are addressed more fully in the Technology chapter.)
•Develop a Community-wide capability that will flag events of importance as the information is collected and processed, as well as the necessary tools to allow analysts to integrate the data quickly with information from other multiple sources.
•Study the costs and benefits of establishing a Community analytic center to provide a prototyping or demonstration capability for data integration. Look for ways to leverage existing efforts.External AnalysisTo enhance our analysis through collaboration with academia, industry, and nongovernmental organizations, to expand our knowledge base, share burdens, challenge assumptions, bring additional perspectives to bear, and encourage innovative thinking._dfa91086-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a6Desired Outcomes:
FY 2005
•Routine interagency collaboration on external research plans, objectives, and events.
•New external interaction policies and legislation focused on risk management.
•IC skills clearinghouse, policies, and contracting vehicle to support an Intelligence reserve.
•Convenient collaboration with external experts at both classified and unclassified levels.
•Easy and routine use of alternative/competitive analysis in appropriate IC products.
•IC-level strategy to set priorities for data mining and Internet exploitation.
FY 2010
•Analytic, policy, and legislative culture that supports full exploitation and integration of external experts.
•Intelligence reserve fully operational and part of IC planning and support.
•Real-time collaboration from analytic desktop at multiple levels of security as appropriate.
•Alternative/competitive analysis fully integrated into IC products as appropriate.
•Increased level of effort to engage external expertise is tied to IC strategy to exploit the expanding realm of unclassified information.Intelligence Community ReserveBuild an Intelligence Community Reserve._dfa913ce-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a6.1Former EmployeesAn Intelligence reserve could be used to augment the analytic cadre for both surge and normal coverage purposes.
Implementing Actions:
•Develop a Community-wide template for our agencies to incorporate in their transition programs that would encourage individuals leaving the Intelligence Community to apply for inclusion in an Intelligence reserve.
•Develop appropriate contract mechanisms and work with Congress to create legal remedies to existing constraints on the hiring of former employees.
•Develop a strategy for alerting retirees to the possibility of joining the reserve. Frame an approach that would allow those interested to retain appropriate security clearances.
•Develop an Internet-based interface that would allow reservists to update their contact and skills information.
•Initiate a pilot program. Review, adjust, and expand the program.Interagency VisibilityImprove interagency visibility of available external research resources and activities. _dfa9172a-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a6.2The Community spends significant resources on external research activities. Broadening knowledge and understanding of these activi ties should ensure minimal duplication of efforts and promote more efficient IC exploita tion of these assets.
Implementing Actions:
•Create an on-line clearinghouse for seminars and projects using external experts. This clearinghouse will keep analysts informed of upcoming events and convey the results of those efforts. This site will also provide outreach program managers the capability to more easily exchange information among themselves.
•Create a database containing external research contract efforts. The Intelligence Community currently has no simple mechanism to coordinate its efforts for external research. While each agency has slightly different needs and different customers, sharing knowledge of these research efforts may allow efficiencies and cost savings not available today. Information EnvironmentDevelop a strategy to embrace and exploit the emerging “information environment.” _dfa91a86-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a6.3External research can be considered a “value-added” hybrid somewhere between open source and human intelligence reporting. Numerous private companies are now providing both periodic and ad hoc informational products geared to the specific interests of their customers—some of which are agencies within the Intelligence Community. These companies provide not only tailored information but analysis of that information and estimates of outcomes and implications as well. For their input, such companies depend largely on open source information. Thus, apart from the value of their insights and analysis, these firms could help us mine the vast amount of open source information for the nuggets we both value. The Community needs to develop a corporate strategy to use these external sources more effectively. Welding together these efforts will be critical to maximizing use of our scarce resources.
Implementing Actions:
•Catalogue and share awareness of current efforts to leverage commercially-available sources of external analysis. Identify best practices.
•Develop a strategy that recognizes the role, criteria for use, and capability of external partners to filter/analyze information.
•Building on these baseline efforts, develop a funding approach containing a list of options and their fiscal impact—including the possible establishment of a coordinating body to implement a Community-wide strategy for Internet exploitation and purchases from open source data companies.External Research PartnersImprove communications with external research partners. _dfa91e1e-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a6.4External Research PartnersEase of communications— both open and secure—with external research partners is essential to fully integrate external research into the analytic process. To that end, we will need an appropriate suite of digital communications tools, including audio, video, graphical, and textual mechanisms.
Implementing Actions:
•Initiate a requirements study, in cooperation with the IC Chief Information Officer, that will lead to development of effective capabilities to communicate with external partners. Desired capabilities include web based audio/video conferencing and white boards to share graphical or textual information (either at the desktop, or using stand alone equipment or facilities)—thus enabling analysts and others to participate remotely in external research seminars, and classified and unclassified “chat-rooms.”Competitive and Alternative AnalysisEstablish competitive and alternative analysis as a standard approach on issues of vital national significance._dfa921ac-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a6.5Some subjects are so important that we must make sure we consider alternative perspectives through mechanisms like competitive analysis and red teaming.
Implementing Actions:
•Identify increased opportunities for competitive and alternative analysis.
•Work with the National Intelligence Council on a pilot establishing standards for competitive and alternative analysis to be included in the NIE process.Partnerships StrategyDevelop a Community-wide strategy for optimizing the benefits of our partnerships with industry, academia, and other government agencies while protecting our secrets and equities._dfa92562-ad97-11df-ab55-53707a64ea2a6.6The DCI identified a need to improve the policies and procedures governing our relationships with the outside world as a priority in his Strategic Intent. Extensive regulations and legislation currently govern how the Community interacts with external research partners. We need to review these policies, using security risk management and reasonable ethical standards as a guide. We cannot make maximum use of outside resources without effective policies and legislation to facilitate the integration of external experts into our workflow.
Implementing Action:
•Conduct an intensive Community review of policies and legislation regarding external research over the next year and recommend revisions as appropriate. This review should build upon the best practices extant in the Community today, with an eye toward making it easier to establish continuing relationships with academics and other outside experts, communicate actively through e-mail and the Internet, and exchange ideas in a collaborative environment. 2010-08-21OwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net