Introduction
IC analysis is at risk of obsolescence. Trends in data, software, and customers require new ways of doing business in the face of a new trend—the democratization of intelligence. This article offers a new, team-based “agile” analytic framework leveraging developments in software development and the commercial start-up community. I outline a seven-step process for finished intelligence production that combines all-source and collection expertise with data engineering and software development, and then I propose opportunities for experimentation as a way forward.
Reinventing Analysis, Again
Few professions seem as prone to self-reflection as intelligence. Scholars and practitioners inside and outside the profession have regularly called for reinventing intelligence analysis, often in the wake of intelligence failures or in reaction to advances in information technology. The topic has appeared regularly in these pages. Some prefer a return to the “glory days” of Sherman Kent, while others see opportunities in the changing technological environment. In some way this debate is evergreen—analysis seems always on the table for discussion, and we always wonder whether we have to rethink our capabilities and what makes us special as a community. I recognize that there are Cassandras who often say that doom is imminent, even when it is not. But the changing commercial and technological landscape is creating a fundamental challenge to IC analysis that we have not faced since the creation of the US Intelligence Community after World War II.