Intelligence Analysis: Advanced (Virtual Course)
Our Advanced Intelligence Analysis course looks to extend the toolkit provided in our Foundations program. To begin, you will be shown how to develop concrete plans and policy recommendations using prescriptive analytic techniques. Thereafter you will be shown how to manage and mitigate the cognitive challenges common to analytic work. Finally, using a series of guided exercises, you will be shown how to evaluate and improve the practice of analysis in your organisation, and how to identify and remove the roadblocks to effective reasoning.
The course will be delivered live over five, 3.5 hour sessions. There will be separate iterations of the course for Asian, European and North American audiences. Please select the start time (SGT, CET or EST) that suits you best.
Course Outline
Thinking Prescriptively
Prescriptive Analysis
- If / then analysis
- Feasibility analysis
- Course of action analysis
- Critical path analysis
- Cost-benefit analysis
- Roadmaps and solution pathways
- Stakeholder analysis
- Rolestorming / Roleplaying
Thinking Opportunistically
Opportunity Analysis
- Thinking and working opportunistically
- Finding and evaluating opportunities
- Inside Out / Outside In thinking
- The Opportunity Canvas
- Working with opportunity matrices
Thinking Adversarially
Challenge Analysis
- Adversarial profiling
- Red teaming
- Team A / Team B method
- Devil's advocacy
- The Key Assumptions Check
- Pre-mortem analysis
Mindsets, Blind Spots and Biases
Cognitive Challenges to Analytic Reasoning
- A typology of cognitive pathologies
- Perception, memory, and reasoning
- Dealing with mindsets, blind spots and biases
- Bias mitigation strategies
Enhancing Analysis in Your Organisation
Toward Effective Analysis in Organisations
- Analytic function within organisations
- Factors determining analytic success
- Common obstacles and roadblocks
- Easy fixes vs larger scale change
- From good to master analysts
- An analyst with influence
- Analyst as an internal consultant
Course Details
Who is this Course For?
This course is intended for experienced analysts and investigators, as well as for those working in strategic planning, policy planning and operational planning.
How You Benefit
On completion of this course you will have the ability to:
- Develop recommendations using prescriptive methods of analysis
- Understand the role of mindsets, biases and other cognitive pathologies in analytic reasoning
- Challenge analytic conclusions in a manner that is rigorous and impartial
- Improve the conduct of analysis in your organisation
- Deploy a range of strategies to improve analytic culture and uncertainty management
What You Receive
- A full set of course slides in PDF
- An index of analytic techniques
- Templates to support the application of the techniques taught
- Six months of post-course support
- A certificate of completion
- One hour of individual consulting if needed
Course Fee
EUR 1,000
Course Prerequisites
We recommend that participants first complete our Intelligence Analysis: Foundations course before undertaking this program. This is to ensure they understand our approach to critical, creative and conceptual reasoning.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
Please observe the following technical requirements:
- You will need a Windows or Mac laptop
- Install Google Chrome
- Install Microsoft Office
- Install Zoom
- Set up a Google account
- A second monitor is recommended but not essential
Additional software requirements will be sent prior to the start of the course.