Publications

Critical Thinking for Strategic Intelligence

Now Available on www.amazon.com!

Critical Thinking for Strategic Intelligence
Katherine Hibbs Pherson and Randolph H. Pherson
October 2012. Paperback. Approx. 150 pages

The book is organized around 20 key questions that all analysts should ask as they prepare to conduct research, draft papers, and present their analysis. We divided the 20 questions into four groups, focusing on the four stages of generating an analytic product:

• How do I get started?
• Where is the information I need?
• What is my argument?
• How do I convey my message most effectively?

In writing this book, we choose to practice what we preach by including a set of case studies that the reader can use to reinforce his or her understanding of the key points in the book.  The case studies focus on a wide range of topics, covering political, economic, military, cyber, and health-related issues. At the end of each chapter, we have provided a set of questions instructors and students can use to test whether the key teaching points have been absorbed.

Throughout the book, feature boxes will alert you to the need to stop and reflect and tell you what structured analytic techniques best support the activities discussed in that chapter. We have also included some of our favorite quotations and a robust set of graphics and textboxes to illustrate key points. The back cover of the book includes a foldout graphic, “The Analyst’s Roadmap,” that captures on one page key points made in the book.

Cases in Intelligence Analysis: Structured Analytic Techniques in Action

Currently available for order!

Cases in Intelligence Analysis: Structured Analytic Techniques in Action
Sarah Miller Beebe and Randolph H. Pherson
December 2011.  Paperback.  Approx. 300 pages
ISBN 978-1-60871-681-4

Accomplished instructors and intelligence practitioners Beebe and Pherson
have created a set of twelve robust, class-tested cases on events in foreign
intelligence, counterintelligence, terrorism, homeland security, law
enforcement, and decision-making support. The case studies are designed
to give analysts-in-training a hands-on opportunity to apply structured
analytic techniques to tackle real-life problems. Each case delivers a
compelling narrative and a set of step-by-step instructions that make
teaching and learning as effective and efficient as possible.

This book is now available for purchase through Amazon.com or for bulk orders through CQ Press.

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Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis is a unique and far reaching compilation of 50 techniques that analysts can use to improve the rigor of their analysis.  Use of the techniques almost always saves analysts time and facilitates collaboration, especially at the start of a project.  The techniques are largely drawn from the intelligence world, but are also practical tools for analysts in a wide variety of professions such as law enforcement, medicine, finance, and business.  In addition to defining the role and scope of Structured Analysis as a distinct form of analysis, the book systematically walks readers through a taxonomy of eight distinct categories of techniques that shape a robust analytic process.  Each of the 50 techniques includes step-by-step instructions, a description of both when to use the technique and the value it adds to analysis, and potential pitfalls to be avoided when using it.  Examples of the technique and an explanation of how it relates to others in the book are also included in many of the descriptions. The authors augment this extensive set of techniques with chapters on effective analytic collaboration, how to validate the effectiveness of Structured Analytic Techniques, and a vision for how to achieve a more robust analytic climate in the future. By defining the domain of structured analytic techniques, providing a manual for teaching these techniques, and outlining the research that needs to be done on these techniques, the book lays a common ground that will enable analysts to work even more effectively and efficiently. Click here to order at Amazon.com "Just as intelligence analysis has seldom been more important, the stakes in the policy process it informs have rarely been higher. Intelligence analysts these days therefore have a special calling, and they owe it to themselves and to those they serve to do everything possible to challenge their own thinking and to rigorously test their conclusions. The strategies offered by Richards Heuer and Randy Pherson in this book provide the means to do precisely that." John McLaughlin, Former Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency and Acting Director of Central Intelligence Psychology of Intelligence Analysis Psychology of Intelligence Analysis has been required reading for intelligence officers studying the art and science of intelligence analysis for decades. Author, Richards J. Heuer, Jr., discusses how fundamental limitations in human mental processes can prompt people to jump to conclusions and employ other simplifying strategies that lead to predictably faulty judgments known as cognitive biases. These analytic mindsets cannot be avoided but they can be overcome through the application of more structured and rigorous analytic techniques including the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses.   Click Here to Order and Learn More   Handbook of Analytic Tools and Techniques The Handbook of Analytic Tools and Techniques describes 22 structured analytic techniques that analysts in the intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement communities as well as the private sector can use to overcome mindsets, leverage their imagination, and instill more rigor in their analysis. The Handbook is organized into three parts: Diagnostic Techniques Imagination Techniques Challenge & Reframing Techniques   Click Here to Order and Learn More LIBRARY:    Case Studies  |   Occasional Papers  |   Works of Heuer  |   Publications  |   Exam Copies

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