Bias and Analysis
Once all the information has been processed, it is time to make sense of it: search for the security issues and deliver the intelligence to the different strategic levels meeting as much as possible all the intelligence requirements identified during the planning step.
A lot has been written about the how the intelligence analysis should be done, with excellent books like Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis (Heuer and Pherson, 2014), Critical Thinking for Strategic Intelligence (Pherson and Pherson, 2016), Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (Heuer, 1999) among many others. And between those writings, many metaphors had been used to describe the process of intelligence analysis.
My personal favorite is the one that compares the art of intelligence analysis with the art of Mosaics: intelligence analysis is like trying to put together the pieces of a mosaic in which the pattern is not clear and the pieces continue to change in size, shape and color.
One thing that an intelligence analyst cannot forget it’s that part of the practice is to challenge his own preconceptions and prejudices ceaselessly. Avoid confirmation bias, not to merely transmit the collected data, to not fall in mirror imaging, clientism, layering, linear thinking, and never influence the analysis to better suits his needs or views. There are many techniques that could be used to mitigate the analyst bias.
These are some common traits used to defined a good intelligence analyst: he or she must have specific knowledge in more than one field; he or she must have a good spoken and written expression, and, most of all, the ability to synthetize almost intuitively the background of a situation.
As conclusion, we could close this chapter with the asseveration that in order to generate effective and relevant intelligence there has to be a continuous intelligence process in place, with a continuous collection, processing and analysis of the gathered information from both internal and external sources.
That analyst must be tackle from different angles and by people with different perspective and backgrounds in order to minimize the risk of falling into our own cognitive biases.
In addition, establishing good mechanisms for both disseminating quality and relevant intelligence reports and for getting feedback from the recipients is key to enrich and improve the process.
