SHERMAN KENT´S PRINCIPLES FOR INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS

SHERMAN KENT´S PRINCIPLES FOR INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS

(The Career Analyst Program (CAP) Teaches These Principles)

1. Intellectual rigor
• Judgments are supported by facts or credible reporting
• All sources are reviewed and evaluate for consistency, credibility
• Uncertainties or gaps in information are made explicit

2. Conscious effort to avoid analytical biases

·         State working assumptions and conclusions drawn from them explicitly

·         Subject assumptions and conclusions to structured chanllenge: what developments would indicate they would be wrong

·         If uncertainties or the stakes of being wrong are high, identify alternative outcomes and what it would take for each to ocurr

3. Willingness to consider other judgments

·         Recognize the limits to your own expertise and avoid treating your account as yours alone

·         Seek out expertise that will complement your own as a product is being prepared.

·         Strong differences of view should be made explicit.

4. Collective responsibility for judgment

·         Seek out and allow time for formal coordination of your product

·         Represent and defend all Agency and DI views

·         Make it clear when your express individual views; do so only when asked

5. Precision of Language

·         Provide your most unique or new insight or fact quickly

·         Use active voice and short sentences; avoid excessive detail; minimize the use of technical terms. Follow DI writing guidelines

·         Shorted is allways better.

6. Systematic use of outside experts as a check on in-house blinders

·         Seek out new external studies and experts relevant to your account and discipline on a continuing basis

·         Keep up with news media treatment of your account and consider whether their perspective offers unique insight

·         On key issues, indicate where outsiders agree or disagree with your judgments

7. Candid admission of shortcomings and learning from mistakes

·         Recognize that intelligence analysis will sometimes be wrong because it must focus on the tough questions or uncertainties

·         Review periodically past judgments or interpretations; what made them right or wrong; how could they have been better

·         Alert the policymaker if you determine that a previous line of analysis was wrong. Explain why and what it means

8. Attentiveness to and focus on policymaker concerns

·         Deliver intelligence that is focused on and timed to the policymaker´s current agenda

·         Make clear the implications of your analysis

·         Provide “actionable” intelligence that can help the policymaker handle a threat, make a decision or achieve an objective

9. Never pursue a policy agenda

·         Personal policy preferences must not shape the information presented or the conclusions of intelligence analysis

·         Politely but clearly deflect policymaker request for recommendations on policy

·         Intelligence helps the policymaker by reducing the range of uncentainty and risk, and by identifying opportunities for action. It does not make the choice for him.