# 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.
