A Guide to Producing ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE: Drivers, Scenarios, and Policy

Good analysis is now more important than ever – whether we're drowning in information, choking on fake news, or simply trying to get a handle on what's going on. To understand events and make sound decisions in international relations, national security, politics, economics, business, and even our personal lives, we need analysis.

• Actionable intelligence comes from understanding the underlying drivers of developments and enables someone making a decision to identify where they can influence events to promote the direct and indirect interests of their country, community, institution, or selves.

This manual teaches an analytical model practiced by the best strategic analysts of the U.S. Intelligence Community – enriched with insights from the author's unique career combining years at the CIA and National Intelligence Council, the White House, the State Department, and on staffs in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

• It takes analysis out of the black box some of its practitioners, including high-priced consultants, keep it in and shows that good analysis is, ultimately, common sense made conscious, deliberate, and even fun. You will learn how to produce analysis for action in a straightforward format that is, if you wish, as easy as filling in a form.

At the heart of the methodology is identifying the drivers of events and describing how those drivers are evolving – stronger/weaker, away/toward resolution – and what scenarios they can lead to. While policymakers often have to respond to the symptoms of problems, addressing the drivers, or the underlying causes, is the secret to effective policy.

• The model also helps you check your biases, test your conclusions, and prepare your analysis for solid, punchy, interesting written or oral presentations.

The author, who has taught analysis, writing, and briefing skills at universities and government institutions in the United States, Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and Central America, is proud to make this manual available to others who strive to master analytical tradecraft and produce actionable intelligence.