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(U//FOUO) Big 'A', Little 'p' -- A&P's Assessment Reports
FROM: Carl Johnson
SID/Deputy Director for Analysis & Production (S2)
Run Date: 12/13/2005
(U//FOUO) Customers want to know what our analysts think. S2 stands up a SIGINT
Assessment Cell to assist.
(U//FOUO) The power of assessment reports -- "putting what's between an analyst's ears on
paper" -- is now a major focus of both NSA and GCHQ senior leadership. That's because they've
heard from SIGINT customers who say that such reporting is simply invaluable to them. Clearly,
the demand for our product is strong.
(U//FOUO) My intent in standing up an assessment cell directly accountable to me is to foster
this line of reporting that stands apart from conventional reports and summaries. The
assessment report has been likened to capturing in writing the flavor of a discussion among a
group of expert analysts wherein the SIGINT facts are interpreted and related with the enriching
context of analysts' experience against the target.
(U//FOUO) I've charged the cell to do several major things:
1. Communicate the value and advance best practices to enable more Product Lines to
broaden this line of reporting;
2. develop a strong community of interest between and amongst analysts who share a
passion for this line of reporting; and
3. stimulate thinking and create exemplars by authoring a number of assessment reports
themselves.
(U//FOUO) Obviously, it would be an enormous -- if not impossible -- challenge for assessment
personnel to independently write richly informed, traditional SIGINT Assessment Reports on
topics with which they may have had little experience. However, "assessment" reports can come
in many shapes and sizes, and the personnel assigned to the SIGINT Assessment Cell can
provide a great service by:
providing guidance and assistance to production centers
"connecting the dots" of various streams of reporting into big-picture analysis, and
discerning key questions and issues within and across product lines and helping to
provide answers to those questions.
(U//FOUO) I encourage Production Centers that have not yet established this line of reporting to
ask the assessment cell to build one of these reports and jump-start their workforce efforts. Not
only will it be a great learning experience, you may find that it will become "the product of
choice" among your customers!
(U//FOUO) Please contact
in the S2 SIGINT Assessment Cell for more information.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108