BLUF | Formal analytical techniques originally developed for use in intelligence analysis are equally effective in crime analysis. The 2007 death of dual citizen Hugues de la Plaza, who was found in his San Francisco, California, apartment, is unresolved by local authorities with conflicting hypotheses as to whether he succumbed by homicide or suicide. TwoContinue reading “Hugues De La Plaza: An Analysis Of Murder Vs. Suicide”
Tag Archives: ACH
The Route 91 Harvest Shooting: An Analysis Of Motives
The following is an application of the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) to the Route 91 Harvest shooter case, the mass murder of 58 persons attending an open-air music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, on 1 October 2017. The case came to a dissatisfying close in early 2019 with investigators announcing a motive was notContinue reading “The Route 91 Harvest Shooting: An Analysis Of Motives”
Mindsets: Robert Hanssen Spy Case Shows They Are Difficult To Overcome
Major intelligence failures are usually caused by failures of analysis, not failures of collection. Relevant information is discounted, misinterpreted, ignored, rejected or overlooked because it fails to fit a prevailing mental model or mind-set. Richards J. Heuer, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis Focusing on a single scenario early in an analysis can lead to a mindsetContinue reading “Mindsets: Robert Hanssen Spy Case Shows They Are Difficult To Overcome”
How To Defend An Analytical Conclusion
If you’re challenged to defend an analytical conclusion, it will strengthen your argument if you’ve based that conclusion on a strong analytical framework. If confronted, you can retrace the path that led you to your findings, and it will bolster your case because structured techniques minimize bias and outside influence. Several years ago, I wasContinue reading “How To Defend An Analytical Conclusion”
The Diligent Researcher Equal To Subject Matter Expert
Subject matter experts (SMEs) are sought for their mastery of a topic, but political science writer Philip Tetlock in his book, Expert Political Judgment, found diligent researchers, who applied critical thinking to a problem, performed equally as well or slightly better than SMEs when it came to forecasting political outcomes. This phenomena applies equally wellContinue reading “The Diligent Researcher Equal To Subject Matter Expert”