How Best to Organize and Optimize the Analytical Effort Within the US Intelligence Community

摘要

This paper presents a series of recommendations on how best to organize and optimize the intelligence analysis effort to ensure the USIC remains competitive and relevant for years to come. Accelerated and pervasive technology changes, its effects on organizations and people, and the necessity to adapt and adopt new ways given this new technology landscape demand nothing short of a cultural transformation within the USIC. It is a transformation many private sector businesses have already undertaken, but one the USIC has not started due to cultural and policy barriers. The new technology landscape, which is characterized by an unprecedented use of mobile devices, on demand Internet computing, the convergence of communications, content, communities, and collaboration, as well as an increased emphasis of semantic integration of data to better support decision-making, has shifted knowledge creation power from institutions to groups and individuals, forcing organizations to move toward greater decentralization. Successful institutions have adapted to this new environment by constantly seeking a 'mercurial sweet spot' along the centralized-decentralized organizational continuum. Unfortunately, the Intelligence Community's proclivity toward greater centralization in spite of decentralizing technology advances prevents us from fully realizing our analytical network potential.