A prudent management system should:
Encourage products that
(a) clearly delineate their assumptions and chains of inference
(b) Emphasize procedures that expose and elaborate alternate points of view - analytic debates, devil's advocate, interdisciplinary brainstorming, competitive analysis, intra-office peer review of production, and elicitation of outside expertise.
Required of Analysts:
Commitment to challenge, refine and challenge again their own working models, precisely because these steps are central to sound interpretation of complex and ambiguous issues.
Intensive exploitation of information already at hand is better than greater than more and better information.
To see the options faced as one sees them, one must understand their values and assumptions and even their misperceptions and misunderstandings.
* Alternative hypotheses need to be carefully constructed - especially those that cannot be disproved on the basis of available information. "Analysis of Competing Hypotheses".
The notion of competition among a series of plausible hypotheses to see which ones survive a gauntlet of testing for compatibility with available information.
The surviving hypothese - those that have not been disproved are subjected to further testing.
Denial and Deception:
If the deception is well-planned and properly executed, one should not expect to see evidence of it readily at hand.
The possibility of deception should not be rejected until it is disproved or, atleast, until a systematic search for evidence has been made and none has been found
To ensure sustained improvement in assessing complex issues
* Establish an organizational environment that promotes and rewards analysis on difficult issues that considers in depth a series of plausible hypotheses rather than allowing the first credible hypotheses to suffice.
* Expand funding for research on how analysts reach judgements.
* Foster development of tools: On tough issues - help in improving mental models and in deriving incisive findings from information they already have; such help is needed as much as one needs more information.
* Commit to a uniform set of tradecraft standards based on the insights in this book. Rather than, "it reads better to me this way", "Regarding point 3, let's talk about your assumptions,"=> Doing battle more effectively against cognitive pitfalls.
*Pay more honor to "doubt"
Gaps in information and other obstacles to confident judgement. Such conclusions as "we do not know" or "there are potentially valid ways to assess this issue" should be regarded as badges of sound analysis, not as dereliction of analytic duty.
Encourage products that
(a) clearly delineate their assumptions and chains of inference
(b) Emphasize procedures that expose and elaborate alternate points of view - analytic debates, devil's advocate, interdisciplinary brainstorming, competitive analysis, intra-office peer review of production, and elicitation of outside expertise.
Required of Analysts:
Commitment to challenge, refine and challenge again their own working models, precisely because these steps are central to sound interpretation of complex and ambiguous issues.
Intensive exploitation of information already at hand is better than greater than more and better information.
To see the options faced as one sees them, one must understand their values and assumptions and even their misperceptions and misunderstandings.
* Alternative hypotheses need to be carefully constructed - especially those that cannot be disproved on the basis of available information. "Analysis of Competing Hypotheses".
The notion of competition among a series of plausible hypotheses to see which ones survive a gauntlet of testing for compatibility with available information.
The surviving hypothese - those that have not been disproved are subjected to further testing.
Denial and Deception:
If the deception is well-planned and properly executed, one should not expect to see evidence of it readily at hand.
The possibility of deception should not be rejected until it is disproved or, atleast, until a systematic search for evidence has been made and none has been found
To ensure sustained improvement in assessing complex issues
* Establish an organizational environment that promotes and rewards analysis on difficult issues that considers in depth a series of plausible hypotheses rather than allowing the first credible hypotheses to suffice.
* Expand funding for research on how analysts reach judgements.
* Foster development of tools: On tough issues - help in improving mental models and in deriving incisive findings from information they already have; such help is needed as much as one needs more information.
* Commit to a uniform set of tradecraft standards based on the insights in this book. Rather than, "it reads better to me this way", "Regarding point 3, let's talk about your assumptions,"=> Doing battle more effectively against cognitive pitfalls.
*Pay more honor to "doubt"
Gaps in information and other obstacles to confident judgement. Such conclusions as "we do not know" or "there are potentially valid ways to assess this issue" should be regarded as badges of sound analysis, not as dereliction of analytic duty.
