Intelligence cycle management

Intelligence cycle management refers to the overall activity of guiding the intelligence cycle, which is a set of processes used to provide decision-useful information (intelligence) to leaders. The cycle consists of several processes, including planning and direction (the focus of this article), collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and production, and dissemination and integration. The related field of counterintelligence is tasked with impeding the intelligence efforts of others. Intelligence organizations are not infallible (intelligence reports are often referred to as "estimates," and often include measures of confidence and reliability) but, when properly managed and tasked, can be among the most valuable tools of management and government.

The principles of intelligence have been discussed and developed from the earliest writers on warfare to the most recent writers on technology. Despite the most powerful computers, the human mind remains at the core of intelligence, discerning patterns and extracting meaning from a flood of correct, incorrect, and sometimes deliberately misleading information (also known as disinformation).

By "intelligence" we mean every sort of information about the enemy and his country—the basis, in short, of our own plans and operations.

One study of analytic culture established the following "consensus" definitions:

One basic model of the intelligence process is called the "intelligence cycle". This model can be applied and, like all basic models, it does not reflect the fullness of real-world operations. Intelligence is processed information. The activities of the intelligence cycle obtain and assemble information, convert it into intelligence and make it available to its users. The intelligence cycle comprises five phases:

A distinct intelligence officer is often entrusted with managing each level of the process.

In some organisations, such as the UK military, these phases are reduced to four, with the "analysis and production" being incorporated into the "processing" phase. These phases describe the minimum process of intelligence, but several other activities also come into play. The output of the intelligence cycle, if accepted, drives operations, which, in turn, produces new material to enter another iteration of the intelligence cycle. Consumers give the intelligence organization broad directions, and the highest level sets budgets.

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) describes an activity that synchronizes and integrates the planning and operation of sensors, assets, and processing, exploitation, and dissemination systems in direct support of current and future operations. This is an integrated intelligence and operations function.

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