Skills of the Analyst

Discipline in collecting due to excessive information.

Time	Task	Description
15 minutes	Requirements definition	Ensure an understanding of commander’s intent
30 minutes	Internet Collection	Use search tools, rapidly identify top ten sites and review
15 minutes	Resources’ Table	Create Resources’ Table for future use and for customer’s reference
60 minutes	Commercial Collection	Use fee sources, identify top 20 items for exploitation
60 minutes	Analysis	Read, understand, evaluate, and structure collected information
60 minutes	Production	Carefully create an analytical summary, table of contents, and slides

4 hours – Total time to produce an open-source analysis report using only internal sources.

OSINT process

1. know who knows - have in-depth knowledge of the available sources’ characteristics.

2. know what’s what - ability to evaluate and assess the validity, scope, degree of accuracy, and timeliness of the requirements.

3. know what’s hot - the ability to distinguish what is important and relevant.

4. know who’s who - the ability to distinguish between facts and speculation and avoid cognitive bias from the sources.

Cognitive deviations (bias)

• systematic error in thinking that affects the decisions and judgments that people make.

• individuals create their subjective social reality from their perception of the input.

• may lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality.

The analyst should be able to avoid cognitive bias from the sources and from his own education, origin, religion, culture and profession.