Part 9 -- Departures From The Intelligence Cycle (Let's Kill The Intelligence Cycle)

Part 1 -- Let's Kill The Intelligence Cycle

Part 2 -- "We''ll Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming In Just A Minute..."

Part 3 -- The Disconnect Between Theory And Practice

Part 4 -- The "Traditional" Intelligence Cycle And Its History

Part 5 -- Critiques Of The Cycle:  Which Intelligence Cycle?

Part 6 -- Critiques Of The Cycle:  The Intelligence Cycle vs. Reality

Part 7 -- Critiques Of The Cycle:  Cycles, Cycles And More Damn Cycles!

Part 8 -- Tweaking The Intelligence Cycle

Other authors have proposed, however, radically different versions of the intelligence process, overthrowing old notions in an attempt to more accurately describe how intelligence is done in the real world.  

The first of these attempts, by longtime academic and former CIA officer, Arthur Hulnick, was the Intelligence Matrix.  Hulnick believed that intelligence was better described in terms of a matrix (see image below).  For Hulnick there were three main activities, parts of which, in many cases, occurred at the same time.  These three “pillars” were collection, production, and support and services.  Hulnick's model, while capturing more of the functions of intelligence, does not seem to provide much guidance on how to actually do intelligence.

Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card of the Palo Alto Research Center also attempted to re-define the intelligence process (see image below).  This re-definition has gained some traction outside of the intelligence community.  While much more complex than the cycle and typically perceived as a departure from it, Pirolli and Card's sensemaking loop is still both very sequential and very circular -- with all the limits that implies.

Probably the most recent and most successful move away from the intelligence cycle, however, has been Robert Clark’s target-centric approach to intelligence analysis (see image below).  What makes Clark unique in many respects is that he is not merely attempting to describe the current intelligence process; he is attempting to examine how intelligence should be done.

Clark expressly rejects the intelligence cycle and advocates a more inclusive approach, one that includes all of the “stakeholders”, i.e. the individuals and organizations potentially affected by the intelligence produced.  Clark claims that, to include these stakeholders, “the cycle must be redefined, not for the convenience of implementation in a traditional hierarchy but so that the process can take full advantage of evolving information technology and handle complex problems.”

Clark calls this a “target-centric approach” because “the goal is to construct a shared picture of the target, from which all participants can extract the elements they need to do their jobs and to which all can contribute from their resources or knowledge.”  This approach does a very good job of describing a healthy relationship between the intelligence professional and the decisionmaker he or she supports.

This description of the way intelligence should work seems to fit well with at least some of the initiatives pursued by the US national security intelligence community.  The example of Intellipedia, discussed in a earlier post, seems particularly close to Clark’s vision of the way intelligence should work.  

What remains less clear is which came first.  Is Intellipedia a natural extension of Clark’s thinking or has Clark merely identified the value of a more inclusive, interactive, Intellipedia-like world?  Furthermore, beyond describing an ideal relationship between intelligence and decisionmakers, how does the intelligence product actually come about?  On this point, as with Hulnick, the model provides little guidance.

Next:  The New Intelligence Process

Part 8 -- Tweaking The Intelligence Cycle (Let's Kill The Intelligence Cycle)

A number of scholars and practitioners have attempted, over the years, to rectify the problems with the intelligence cycle.  While, from a theoretical standpoint, virtually all of these attempts have resulted in a more nuanced understanding of the intelligence process, none has caught on among intelligence professionals and none has been able to de-throne the intelligence cycle as the dominant image of how intelligence works.

These new schools of thought fall into two general patterns:  Those that are tweaking the intelligence cycle in order to bring it closer to reality and those that seek to overhaul the entire image of how intelligence works (which I will discuss tomorrow).

Several authors have sought to modify the intelligence cycle in order to create a more realistic image of how intelligence “really” works.  While some restructuring of the intelligence cycle is done within virtually every intelligence schoolhouse, the four authors most commonly discussed include Lisa Krizan, Gregory Treverton, Mark Lowenthal and Rob Johnston.  These authors seek to build upon the existing model in order to make it more realistic.

From:  Intelligence Essentials For Everyone

Krizan, in her 1999 monograph, Intelligence Essentials For Everyone provides a slightly restructured view of the Intelligence Cycle (see image to the right) and, while quoting Douglas Dearth, states “These labels, and the illustration ..., should not be interpreted to mean that intelligence is a uni-dimensional and unidirectional process. ‘In fact, the [process] is a multidimensional, multi-directional, and - most importantly - interactive and iteractive.’”

From:  Reshaping National Intelligence 

Treverton, in Reshaping National Intelligence In An Age Of Information, outlines a slightly more ambitious version of the cycle.  In this adaptation, Treverton seeks to more completely include the decisionmaker in the process.  You can see a version of Treverton's cycle to the right.

Lowenthal in his classic, Intelligence:  From Secrets To Policy, acknowledges the flaws of the traditional intelligence cycle which he calls “overly simple”.  His version, reproduced below, demonstrates “that at any stage in the process it is possible – and sometimes necessary – to go back to an earlier step.  Initial collection may prove unsatisfactory and may lead policymakers to change the requirements; processing and exploitation or analysis may reveal gaps, resulting in new collection requirements; consumers may change their needs and ask for more intelligence.  And, on occasion, intelligence officers may receive feedback.”  Lowenthal's revised model, more than any other, seems to me to capture that the intelligence process takes place in a time constrained environment.

From Intelligence:  From Secrets To Policy

Perhaps the most dramatic re-visioning of the intelligence cycle, however, comes from anthropologist Rob Johnston in his book, Analytic Culture In The US Intelligence Community.  Johnston spent a year studying the analytic culture of the CIA in the time frame immediately following the events of September 11, 2001.  

His unique viewpoint resulted in an equally unique rendition of the traditional intelligence cycle, this time from a systems perspective.  This complicated vision (reproduced below) includes “stocks” or accumulations of information; “flows” or certain types of activity; “converters” that change inputs to outputs and “connectors”, which tie all of the other parts together.  

While, according to Johnston, “the premise that underlies systems analysis as a basis for understanding phenomena is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, the subsequent model does not seek to replace the intelligence cycle but only to describe it more accurately:  “The elements of the Intelligence Cycle are identified in terms of their relationship with each other, the flow of the process and the phenomena that influence the elements and the flow.”

From:  Analytic Culture In The US Intelligence Community

While each of these models recognizes and attempts to rectify one or more of the flaws inherent in the traditional intelligence cycle and each of the modified versions is a decided improvement on the original cycle, none of these models seeks to discard the fundamental vision of the intelligence process described by the cycle.  

Next:   Departures From The Intelligence Cycle

Part 7 -- Critiques Of The Cycle: Cycles, Cycles And More Damn Cycles (Let's Kill The Intelligence Cycle)

Part 1 -- Let's Kill The Intelligence Cycle
Part 2 -- "We''ll Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming In Just A Minute..."
Part 3 -- The Disconnect Between Theory And Practice
Part 4 -- The "Traditional" Intelligence Cycle And Its History
Part 5 -- Critiques Of The Cycle:  Which Intelligence Cycle?

Part 6 -- Critiques Of The Cycle:  The Intelligence Cycle Vs. Reality

While intelligence professionals often tout the intelligence cycle as something unique, to experienced business, law enforcement and national security decisionmakers, the intelligence cycle looks like many other linear decisionmaking processes with which decisionmakers are already familiar.  

Moreover, this familiarity has bred a certain amount of contempt as all of these disciplines are wrestling with re-defining their own processes in light of 21st century technology and systems thinking.  In short, the intelligence cycle not only fails in its attempt to explain the intelligence process but also comes across as an archaic sales pitch to a decisionmaker who is typically all too familiar with the flaws of linear process models.

http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/opre640/opre640.htm

Every military officer, policeman or business student who has attended even relatively low level training in their profession is familiar with a model of decisionmaking that typically includes defining the question, collecting information relevant to the question, analyzing alternatives or courses of action, making a recommendation and then communicating or executing the recommendation (see image to the right).  

This model, of course, bears a striking resemblance to the “intelligence cycle”; a resemblance that may fool the uninformed but is unlikely to pass unnoticed by the decisionmakers that intelligence supports.  These decisionmakers, who are never blank slates and rarely outright fools, are also unlikely to accept such a simplistic explanation of the process unless accepting such an explanation serves their own purposes or they simply don't care.

This, in turn, results in two negative consequences for intelligence.  First, decisionmakers will, at best, see intelligence as “nothing special”.  The process used appears, from their perspective, to be just a glorified decisionmaking process.  

At worst, however, decisionmakers will see the “intelligence cycle” as mere advertising puffery, a fancy way of talking about something which could, in their eyes, be defined much more simply using a linear process model (albeit an out-of-date one) with which they are already familiar.  Many private sector intelligence organizations have problems convincing the decisionmakers they support of the importance of intelligence.  Over emphasis on the value of the intelligence cycle, particularly when faced by an educated decisionmaker, might well be part of the problem.

More insidiously, however, such a perception clouds the true role of intelligence in the decisionmaking process.  Decisionmakers, trained in and used to working with the decisionmaking process, will look for intelligence professionals to provide the same kinds of outputs – recommendations – as their process does.  

Intelligence, however, is focused externally, on issues relevant to the success or failure of the organization but fundamentally outside that organization's control.  Intelligence does best when it focuses on estimating the capabilities and limitations of those external forces and poorly when it attempts to make recommendations to operators as the intelligence professional is generally less well informed than others in the organization about the capabilities and limitations of the parent entity. 

In short, because the intelligence cycle creates the impression in the minds of many decisionmakers (particularly those unfamiliar with intelligence but well -educated in their own operational arts), that intelligence is “just like what I do”, only with a different name, the value of intelligence is more difficult to explain to decisionmakers than it needs to be.

Furthermore, once the decisionmakers think they understand the nature of intelligence, the way that nature has been communicated to them predisposes them to ask questions of intelligence that the intelligence professional is poorly positioned to answer.

Next:  Tweaking The Intelligence Cycle

Part 6 -- Critiques Of The Cycle: The Intelligence Cycle Vs. Reality (Let's Kill The Intelligence Cycle)

Part 1 -- Let's Kill The Intelligence Cycle
Part 2 -- "We''ll Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming In Just A Minute..."
Part 3 -- The Disconnect Between Theory And Practice
Part 4 -- The "Traditional" Intelligence Cycle And Its History
Part 5 -- Critiques Of The Cycle:  Which Intelligence Cycle?
 
Were the lack of precision the only criticism of the intelligence cycle, it might be able to weather the storm. As suggested previously, there do appear to be general themes that are relevant, and the cycle’s continued existence suggests that its inconsistencies are outweighed, to some extent, by its simplicity.

Unfortunately, the second type of criticism typically leveled against the cycle is much more damning.  In fact, it is fatal.   Simply put, there is virtually no knowledgeable practitioner or theorist who claims that the cycle reflects, in any substantial way or in any sub-discipline, the reality of how intelligence is actually done.

Consider these quotes from some of the most authoritative voices in each of the three intelligence communities:

"When it came time to start writing about intelligence, a practice I began in my later years at the CIA, I realized that there were serious problems with the intelligence cycle.  It is really not a very good description of the ways in which the intelligence process works."  Arthur Hulnick, "What's Wrong With The Intelligence Cycle", Strategic Intelligence, Vol. 1 (Loch Johnson, ed), 2007.

"Although meant to be little more than a quick schematic presentation, the CIA diagram [of the intelligence cycle] misrepresents some aspects and misses many others." -- Mark Lowenthal, Intelligence:  From Secrets to Policy (2nd Ed.,2003)

"We must begin by redefining the traditional linear intelligence cycle, which is more a manifestation of the bureaucratic structure of the intelligence community than a description of the intelligence exploitation process." -- Eliot Jardines, former head of the Open Source Center, in prepared testimony in front of Congress, 2005.

"The traditional intelligence cycle has been described as an "ideal-type" process that will always be subject to the real constraints of time." -- Jerry Ratcliffe, Strategic Thinking In Criminal Intelligence, 2004

"The classic intelligence cycle is neat, easily displayed, and quickly understood.  The problem is that it doesn't really work that way.  It's too static, too rigid, with too much distance between leaders and intelligence professionals."  -- T.J. Waters, Hyperformance:  Using Competitive Intelligence For Better Strategy and Execution, 2010

"Over the years, the intelligence cycle has become somewhat of a theological concept:  No one questions its validity.  Yet, when pressed, many intelligence officers admit that the intelligence process, 'really doesn't work that way.'" -- Robert Clark, Intelligence Analysis:  A Target-centric Approach, 2010.

Once you start looking for them, it is easy to find detailed critiques of the intelligence cycle (and, please, don't hesitate to add your own).  The only argument that still seems worth debating is whether or not the cost of maintaining this flawed model of the process is worth the benefit (a question about which readers of this blog were almost evenly split).

In addition to the quotes above, my colleague, Steve Marrin, provided me with an interesting update shortly after I started this series.  According to him, the intelligence cycle was the subject of "vigorous discussion" at a 2005 RAND/ODNI Conference on intelligence theory and that this topic will also be the subject of a panel at the 2012 International Studies Association Conference.  For a carefully crafted and articulate dissection of the intelligence cycle, I don't think I could recommend a better article than Steve's own chapter, "Intelligence Analysis and Decision-making:  Methodological Challenges from the 2009 book, Intelligence Theory:  Key Questions and Debate).

Once again, themes emerge from the general discontent with the inadequacies of the intelligence cycle.  Many of these themes I will touch upon as I discuss alternatives to the intelligence cycle in later posts.  One theme, however, leaps off each page and tends to dominate the discussion:  The intelligence cycle is linear and intelligence, as practiced, is not. Tasks move from one part of the cycle to another like an assembly line, where parts are bolted on in a specific order to create a consistent product.

While this approach might be appropriate for early 20th century manufacturers, it doesn’t work with intelligence, where each product, ideally, contains information that is somehow unique. Consider, for example, this hypothetical dialogue between Mary, the CEO of Acme Widgets and Joe, her chief of competitive intelligence:

Mary: I need to know everything there is to know about the Zed Widgets Company.
Joe: Sure. What’s up?
Mary: We are thinking about introducing a new widget and I want to know what the competition is up to.
Joe: Anything in particular you are interested in?
Mary: Well, I can see their marketing efforts on the TV every day, so I am not really interested in that. I guess the most important thing is their cost structure. I want to know how much it costs them to make their widgets and where those costs are.
Joe: Right. Labor, overhead, materials. Got it. Is one part of the cost structure more important than another to you?
Mary. They pay about the same amount in labor and overhead that we do so I guess I am most interested in the materials; particularly Material X. That is our most expensive material.
Joe: I just read a report that indicated that the cost of material X is set to rise worldwide. Would you also like us to take a harder look at that and give you our estimate?
Mary: Absolutely.

While this example is simplistic, it makes the point. Intelligence, even in this one minor example within only one of the many parts of the traditional intelligence cycle is, or should be, at least, interactive, simultaneous, iterative. In the above example, this interaction between the intelligence professional and the CEO resulted in a more detailed and nuanced intelligence requirement going, as it did, from the very general, “Tell me everything…” requirement to the highly focused, “Tell me about Zed Company’s Material X costs and give me an estimate of where the price of Material X is likely to go.”

It is equally easy to imagine this kind of interaction within and between parts of the cycle as well. Collectors and analysts will inevitably go back and forth as the analysts attempt to add depth to their reporting and as the collector develops new collection capabilities. It is even likely that parts of the cycle that are not adjacent to one another will work very closely together, such as an analyst and the briefer responsible for the final dissemination of the product (in its oral form). Decisionmakers, too, may well remain involved throughout the process, seeking status reports and perhaps even modifying the requirement as new information or preliminary analysis becomes available.

The US military's Joint Staff Publication 2.0, Joint Intelligence, states the case more strongly:

"In many situations, the various intelligence operations occur nearly simultaneous with one another or may be bypassed altogether. For example, a request for imagery will require planning and direction activity but may not involve new collection, processing, or exploitation. In this example, the imagery request could go directly to a production facility where previously collected and exploited imagery is reviewed to determine if it will satisfy the request. Likewise, during processing and exploitation, relevant information may be disseminated directly to the user without first undergoing detailed all-source analysis and intelligence production. Significant unanalyzed combat information must be simultaneously available to both the commander (for time-critical decision-making) and to the intelligence analyst (for production of current intelligence assessments). Additionally, the activities within each type of intelligence operation are conducted continuously and in conjunction with activities in each of the other categories of intelligence operations. For example, intelligence planning is updated based on previous information requirements being satisfied during collection and upon new requirements being identified during analysis and production."

The situation is even more complex when you imagine an intelligence unit without teams of people working each of the discrete parts of the cycle. In situations involving small intelligence shops, where a single indivdual collects, processes, translates, analyzes, formats and produces the intelligence, the cycle breaks down completely.

The human mind simply does not work in this strictly linear fashion. Instead, it jumps from task to task. Imagine your own habits when researching a topic. You think a bit, search a bit, get some information, integrate that into the whole and then search some more. This approach inevitably leads to analytic dead ends, requiring more collection. At the same time, you are thinking about the form of the final report. If you are putting together an intelligence product that will use multimedia in its final form, for example, you are constantly on the lookout for relevant graphics or film footage you can use, regardless of its analytic value. To even suggest that you should collect all of your information, stop, and then go and do analysis without ever doing any further collection, is absurd.

One of the most recent and widely publicized innovations within the US national security community is the advent of “Intellipedia”, a Wikipedia-like tool for the intelligence community. Wikipedia, of course, is the online encyclopedia that is free to use and editable by anyone. It is one of the most popular sites on the web and, according to at least some research, is as accurate as other generally accepted encyclopedias. It has become, in its short lifespan, the tertiary source of first resort for both analysts and academics.

One of the things it is not is linear. There is no "Table of Contents" and researchers, authors and editors choose their own path through the resource.  Some people generate full articles; others only dive in occasionally to fix a particular fact or even a grammatical or spelling error. There are even full-fledged “edit wars” where a particular version of an especially hot topic changes back and forth between competing points of view until either one side gets tired and gives up or, more likely, the sides reach a version acceptable to all. In the end, it is openness and interactivity that give Wikipedia its strength.

The US national security community acknowledged the value of such a tool, at least with respect to its descriptive products, when it launched Intellipedia. Begun in April, 2006, Intellipedia, according to information from June, 2010, now has 250,000 registered users and is accessed over 2 million times per week. This effort, which is clearly far beyond the experimental stage, plainly shows that collaboration and interactivity – the anti-intelligence cycle -- are core to any modern description of the intelligence process.

Next:  Cycles, Cycles And More Damn Cycles!

Part 5 -- Critiques Of The Cycle: Which Intelligence Cycle? (Let's Kill The Intelligence Cycle)

Part 1 -- Let's Kill The Intelligence Cycle
Part 2 -- "We''ll Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming In Just A Minute..."
Part 3 -- The Disconnect Between Theory And Practice
Part 4 -- The "Traditional" Intelligence Cycle And Its History

Despite its popularity, the intelligence cycle is widely criticized by intelligence professionals. These criticisms generally break down along three lines. First, there are those who say that what appears to be a theoretical monolith is actually open to a wide variety of interpretations, depending on perspective. Indeed, there is not one intelligence cycle but a series of intelligence cycles, each substantively different from the rest.

Second, many authors have claimed, quite convincingly, that the intelligence cycle, as generally described, does not, in many material ways, reflect the reality of how intelligence actually is done. The simplicity of the cycle, to these critics, is both seductive and deceiving.

Finally, there are those critics who claim that the so-called intelligence cycle is simply a marketing tool that rebrands overly simplistic "cycles" from business and leadership courses. I intend to discuss each in turn.

Which Intelligence Cycle?

Compare the diagram of the intelligence cycle which, until recently, graced the Intelligence.gov website (owned by the Director of National Intelligence -- DNI) with the diagram of the intelligence cycle from the Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI) below.



FBI Version Of The Intelligence Cycle



Recent DNI Version Of The Intelligence Cycle



Besides the obvious differences in graphic representation, what differences in content do you notice? If you look carefully, you will see that the FBI has decided to include a phase that is not in the DNI’s image, the “requirements phase”.

For a seasoned professional, this difference is trivial. Indeed, as I discussed in my overview of the intelligence cycle in Part 4 of this series, there is an explicit need for requirements and the FBI’s inclusion of them as a separate phase of the process might seem to be a matter of professional choice.

A student of intelligence, particularly a new student, might legitimately question this explanation, however. Perhaps there is a difference. Perhaps the FBI’s characterization represents a new way of thinking about intelligence as a process.

Perhaps, in fact, one description of the process is substantively better than the other. If this is not the case, then what is the explanation for the differences? There does not seem to be a good reason why the FBI’s take on the intelligence cycle should differ from that of the main intelligence site for the US Government, particularly since the FBI’s intelligence function, since the 2004 restructuring of the US intelligence community, is, in many ways, subordinate to that of the Director of National Intelligence. In short, does this difference represent legitimate theoretical differences or is it merely the result of a lack of coordination or, worse, sloppy thinking?

To make matters worse, the DNI's recently updated version of the intelligence cycle confuses the issue even more.  You can see the the graphic currently in use at intelligence.gov below:

A quick examination of the current version of the DNI's cycle seems to differ from the previous version is several substantive ways.  "Direction", "Exploitation" and "Production" all appear to be subsumed into broader categories of activities.  Is there a reason for this?  Did the DNI conduct studies to determine the best, most accurate, description of the cycle?  Or was this a graphic design decision made becasue there was simply not enough room in the graphic for the additional words? 

It gets worse.

On the same page that contains the graphic above, the DNI promotes not one but two additional variations of the cycle.  In the first, more modest, variation (contained in the text that describes the picture), the DNI says, "The process begins with identifying the issues in which policy makers are interested and defining the answers they need to make educated decisions regarding those issues.  We then lay out a plan for acquiring that infromation and go about collecting it."  If this is true, then why doesn't the graphic also "begin" with requirements?  Why does the graphic seem to begin with planning?

It gets even worse.

The third variation of the cycle (all on the same page) from the DNI comes at the very top of the page.  Here one finds five links, "Management", "Data Gathering", "Interpretation", "Analysis and Reporting", and "Distribution".  Clicking on the "Management" link indicates that management -- not requirements, not planning -- "is the initial stage of the intelligence cycle".

Sigh. 

I wonder which version is taught in the Intel 101 courses?

I wonder how you grade a student who uses an "alternative" cycle as an answer on a test?

I wonder, if the intelligence cycle is perfect (as about 15% of the people I have polled indicate), which of these cycles is perfect-est?

Were these differences the only differences within the US national security intelligence community, they might be explained away more simply but they are not. In fact, there is very little consistency across and even within a number of important elements of the US national security community. These inconsistencies also exist across disciplines as well.

Examine the chart below. Only one function, collection, is universally attributed to intelligence across all 10 organizations examined.

Within the DNI, CIA and FBI there are minor but important differences – not one of the three is exactly like either of the other two.

Even more baffling are the differences within the US military, however. The Defense Technical Information Center (“the premier provider of Department Of Defense technical information”) has a streamlined four-part description of the cycle, one that largely (but not completely) agrees with the cycle as taught at Fort Huachuca, the Army’s home for its military intelligence professionals. This cycle, however, is substantially different from the process defined in the US Military’s highest-level publication on intelligence doctrine, Joint Publication 2.0. 

The differences evident in the US military may well be due to different publation dates or my own lack of access to the most recent revisions of some of these documents.  In this regard, though, the 2007 Joint Pub is worthy of further commentary.  In it, the US military seems to abandon the intelligence cycle in favor of a more generic intelligence "process".  Some have suggested that this proves the military has already killed the intelligence cycle (but it just didn't get the memo...).

While it is (from my viewpoint, at least) a step in the right direction, it only exacerbates the impression that either the left hand is not speaking to the right in the US national security intelligence community or that the DNI doesn't control or doesn't care what the Joint Staff puts out with respect to the intelligence process.  All of those alternatives make the US IC look sloppy and disorganized.

I also think the Joint Staff is trying to have its cake and eat it, too.  Compare the two images below.  The first is from the most recent public version of Joint Pub 2.0.  The second is from the 1990 version of the US Army's Field Manual 34-3, Intelligence Analysis.  While the words in the two publications contain many significant differences, the pictures seem to say that the military has not backed too far away from its conception of the process as a cycle.


Join Pub 2.0 Intel Process 2007

FM 34-3 Intel Cycle 1990



These descriptions of the cycle differ, again, in significant ways from the descriptions provided by two oversight bodies commissioned to examine intelligence activities listed on the chart, the 1996 Graham Rudman Commission and the 2004 Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission. To round out the confusion, the description of the cycle offered by the International Association Of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts and the classic competitive intelligence model (as described by longtime private sector intelligence specialist, John McGonagle) also differ from each other and from the other 8 examples.

This analysis, while interesting, comes across as perhaps a bit more picky than it should. Other processes in other disciplines lend themselves to various descriptions. Indeed, despite the differences, there are clear themes that emerge even from this analysis. Few, for example, would question whether requirements, needs, direction, and planning fell into a single, generic category.

Themes, however, is all these are. A rigid approach to intelligence, implied visually in the pictures above and in many of the descriptions of these processes by each of these intelligence organizations, seems inappropriate under these conditions for teaching these concepts to new members of the intelligence profession or, indeed, explaining the process to the decisionmakers that intelligence supports. Instead, a more nuanced and less absolutist approach appears to be called for.

There is one specific area where this analysis does create cause for concern, however. Only three of the 10 organizations examined include a feedback or evaluation function within their versions of the cycle.

While some of the other organizations did include feedback as a subset of the dissemination process, subordinating this crucial evaluative process is not likely to endear the intelligence function to the decisionmakers that intelligence supports. It seems much better practice to include explicitly the role of feedback in the process, whether the decisionmaker chooses to take advantage of it or not.

Next:  The Intelligence Cycle vs. Reality