STATUS REPORT ON AN EVALUATION PANEL FOR COURSES ON THE ANALYTICAL PROCESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89-00955R000100010015-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 5, 2011
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: April 26, 1985
• Content Type: MEMO

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ta i sateport on an`EvaluatioriPanel' for Courses on the
Analytical Process
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26 April 1985
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director Designate, Office of Training and
Education
Analysis Training Branch/IT
SUBJECT: Status Report on an Evaluation Panel for
Courses on the Analytical Process
1. I am in the process of merging plans for the one-day
review conference on the OTE curriculum regarding the process of
analysis with your proposal to establish an evaluation panel.
2. The original plan was to elicit a one-shot critical
review from a group of outside authorities and DI managers. What
are the challenges to effective analysis and the recommended
correctives that should undergird the curriculum and drive the
constituent courses. Regarding what we do and why, are there
alternatives for enhancing the utility of the program for the
Directorate of Intelligence.
3. I believe there is a general congruence both on
diagnosis of the problems and on perscriptions for improvement
between the views of OTE course directors and those of outside
authorities on policy and intelligence analysis. I believe the
views of most DI managers are also generally similar, if at tunes
articulated in different terms. Much more open to challenge,
however, are the content, emphasis, number, and spacing of indi-
vidual courses.
4. We will examine the New Analyst Course (NAC), Seminar
on Intelligence Analysis (SIA), and Seminar on Intelligence
Successes and Failures (ISF). We will make reference to
"substitute" courses for the NAC (e.g., Intelligence Analysis
Course) and to the new offerings on warning and deception. But
at this stage, we probably will not examine these in detail.
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CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: Status Report on an Evaluation Panel for Courses on
the Analytical Process
5. Nearly all new DI hires (some 200 in 1985) take the hikC
or a similar course, where the emphasis is on survival skills--
the mechanics for effective conventional wisdom and products.
About 90 analysts per year take the SIA (mostly after two to five
years of experience), which exposes them to techniques for adding
discipline and creativity to their assessments. And 50 to 60
experienced analysts and supervisors participate in the ISF,
which examines DDI recommendations for overcoming a variety of
problems, including strained policy relations.
6. Bob Jervis of Columbia and Dick Betts of Brookings have
agreed to participate in the conference. Both have done
impressive work on policy and intelligence analysis--especially
in the areas of ambiguity and deception, misperception and bias,
policy relations, and barriers to openmindedness and creativity.
7. Bob Dorn of the Center for Creative Leadership has also
accepted, and will approach the problem from the vantage point of
organizational psychology.
8. You want to add Graham Allison, which can be done
either now or later; and the DDI may also wish to recommend an
outside panelist.
Inside Panelists
9. The goal here is to get a mixture of managers, in
effect our sponsors and "consumers," whose views can help us
improve the effectiveness of our program and whose support can
enhance its impact. Perhaps four or five inside panel members
would be about right, though other interested managers could
participate as observers.
a. Dick Kerr
b. Helene Boatner
c.
e.
f
g.
10. After the DDI, Kerr and Boatner are the central figures
in the relationship between analysis training and the
Directorate. Since they are ultimately responsible for the
CONFIDENTIAL
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 ~ _ II
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CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: Status Report on an Evaluation Panel for Courses or,
the Analytical Process
number and quality of course directors and students, they must
have high confidence in the soundness of our courses. The other
suggested panelists represent the Offices that send the bulk of
the students, except for Scopelitis who may have special insights
after her work on the IG Report on OTE.
The Conference
11. The conference is scheduled for 25 June at Chamber of
Commerce. My plans are as follows:
a. Send the participants a pre-conference paper on the
matters to be discussed;
b. Table some classified information on numbers,
syllabuses, and so forth;
c. Hold three short sessions at which the directors of the
individual courses provide additional information and
answer questions;
d. Give the outside participants (perhaps with the
assistance of one inside panelist) 45 minutes to plan
their critique and an hour to deliver it;
e. Open the discussion to all participants;
f. Conclude with a statement on the general sense of the
meeting.
Post-Conference Activities
a. Draft a conference report addressed to U/OTC: and DUI, to
be reviewed by and issues in the name of the evaluation
panel.
b. Reconvene the panel for followup critiques once or twice
a year.
Outside Activities
12. Your goal of using the exercise as a model for other
OTE evaluation panels could be advanced by:
a. Inviting OTE division chiefs to participate in the
conference as observers;
CONFIDENTIAL
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/05/05: CIA-RDP89-00955R000100010015-0
CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: Status Report on an Evaluation Panel for Courses on
the Analytical Process
b. After the conference, convening a session of the
Curriculum Committee to review the process and the
report.
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