Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
The U.S. government agency that oversees and coordinates the 18 organizations of the Intelligence Community. Established in 2004 in response to the 9/11 Commission and pre-Iraq War intelligence failures. Promotes IC-wide training in critical thinking and Structured Analytic Techniques.
Key Output: ICD 203
Intelligence Community Directive 203 (2007), Analytic Standards — the canonical IC standards document. States that IC finished intelligence:
- Properly describes quality and reliability of underlying sources
- Properly caveats and expresses uncertainties or confidence in analytic judgments
- Properly distinguishes between underlying intelligence and analysts’ assumptions and judgments
- Incorporates alternative analysis where appropriate
- Demonstrates relevance to U.S. national security
- Uses logical argumentation
- Exhibits consistency of analysis over time, or highlights changes and explains rationale
- Accuracy
These are the criteria against which RAND evaluated SAT-using vs. non-SAT-using IC products in their 2016 pilot study.
Office of Analytic Integrity and Standards
ODNI’s evaluation arm — regularly reviews finished IC production against the ICD 203 standards but does not specifically measure SAT use or impact on quality.
Wiki Sources
- Artner, Girven & Bruce — Assessing SATs (RAND RR1408, 2016) — context for SAT evaluation methodology