It is a fact that most intelligence work is not that glamorous, and intelligence analysts will only occasionally get to deliver dynamic assessments to the management board, pull people out of far-flung places in the nick of time or forestall the next crisis.
This may come as something of a shock to those intending to work in the intelligence field for the commercial, public or defence sectors. But the majority of intelligence work is satisfying only in the same way as completing The Times crossword or a particularly difficult Sudoku puzzle. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be memorable times, but there needs to be a preparedness for less, rather than more, of the fast flashy cars type of excitement.
Image courtesy of Johan Ooman
Successful intelligence work depends largely on gleaning insightful information from detailed research. This can mean finding the proverbial needle in the haystack in instances where the challenge is to identify very specific information amongst a huge swath of data. Or, at the other end of the scale, making sense of a very small dataset by wringing out every last drop of value from it. But often, in our digital age, the test is to make sense of huge quantities of confusing and conflicting information. Specific skills are required in collation, evaluation and analysis to meet these challenges.
Collation requires a database and, although that may sound easy, as Major General James Hockenhull noted at DSEI 2015 (Defence & Security Equipment International) even the UK MoD fails in this regard and does not have a reliable and effective database for its intelligence operations. Link to DSEI 2015 media article.
Most databases suffer, as they grow, from incorrect, partial and unrelated entries that can obscure the details essential to successful analysis. Of course, intelligence assessments based on erroneous information will be wrong. The importance of collation should not then be understated; if it is not right, all the follow-on intelligence work could be potentially wasted.
Databases need to differentiate between information and intelligence; intelligence is quantified, assessed and in context, whilst information is not. There is a significant difference between these two things, but if that is not clear to the collators, analysts and managers then the database will quickly become a liability.
Often the people employed conducting the initial collation and evaluation are your most junior staff and the most distant, in terms of understanding, from the mission intent. This role is either viewed as a dead-end job or a rite of passage for analysts, but to be got out of the way as soon as possible. Is it any wonder that errors creep into this function, whilst also losing an opportunity to harness this resource to provide dynamic first line analysis? These are the people who could initiate real-time action in response to your “indicators and warnings” of a crisis; your collators are essential to the success of your mission.
Photo courtesy of Yoel Ben-Avraham
Analysis is where information is pulled apart and studied, before being reconstructed into an intelligence picture. Knowledge gaps are filled and predictive assessments are made to deliver to the decision-maker an actionable and quantifiable product bespoke to their requirements.
A key weapon in the analyst’s armoury to achieve this goal is that of visualisation. This can be as a briefing aid to deliver concepts to an audience or as a working document to drive analytical thought. Whether this is a large dataset or a developing complex operation, pictorial representation is vital to its understanding. There are vastly expensive programs on the market offering visualisation analysis, but also consider the freeware available, which would include your trusted white board and flipchart.
The real recipe for success in using intelligence effectively in your business therefore is relatively straightforward; employ trained dedicated intelligence staff and put at their disposal a decent database and visualisation tools. Nothing glamorous perhaps, but very effective.
Are you considering enhancing your in-house intelligence capability? Is your intelligence team realising its full potential? To find out more about what QRO Global could do to assist your business or to learn more about the types of projects that we have worked on in the past, see our Services Page or email us today – info@qro-global.co.uk
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