Intelligence Requirements

What Are Intelligence Requirements? (Besides a Way to Make Collectors Roll Their Eyes)

Intelligence requirements are the questions that need answering, the gaps that need filling, and the uncertainties that keep decision-makers awake at 3 AM wondering if they should have gone into accounting instead.

In simpler terms, they're the "need to know" items that drive intelligence collection, analysis, and production. Think of them as the intelligence community's version of a shopping list - except instead of "milk, eggs, and bread," it's "who, what, where, when, how, and why is this threat actor planning to ruin our day?"

> "I need to know everything about everything immediately" is not a requirement. It's a cry for help.

The Intelligence Requirements Hierarchy (A Pyramid Scheme That Actually Works)

• Priority Intelligence Requirements (PIRs) - The VIPs of the requirements world. These are the critical questions that directly support major decisions. When the boss asks, "Do we have an answer yet?" they're usually referring to these.
• Essential Elements of Information (EEIs) - The building blocks needed to answer PIRs. Think of them as the "sub-questions" that, when answered collectively, help solve the bigger puzzle. Or as analysts call them, "the actual work."
• Specific Information Requirements (SIRs) - The nitty-gritty details that collectors need to hunt down. These are so specific that they make even the most detail-oriented person say, "Wow, that's specific."

Characteristics of Good Requirements (Rare as Unicorns, But Possible)

• Specific - "Tell me about the threat" is not specific. "Identify the capabilities and intentions of Group X to conduct cyber operations against Industry Y in the next 90 days" is specific. One will get you useful intelligence; the other will get you a look of despair from your analyst.
• Answerable - If your requirement can only be answered by placing a source inside the mind of a foreign leader, you might want to reconsider. Unless you have Professor X on your team, which most agencies don't (budget constraints).
• Relevant - If the answer won't affect a decision or action, why are you asking? Intelligence resources are finite, unlike the questions managers can come up with.
• Timely - A perfect answer that arrives after the decision has been made is about as useful as sunscreen during a rainstorm.
• Prioritized - When everything is "URGENT-IMMEDIATE-TOP PRIORITY," nothing is. Choose your battles, or watch your requirements sink to the bottom of everyone's to-do list.

> The more precise your requirements, the more useful the intelligence you'll receive. But also, the more likely you are to discover that what you're asking for is impossible to collect. It's Schrödinger's intelligence requirement.

The Requirements Development Process (Or: How to Turn Vague Concerns into Actionable Questions)

• Identify decisions that need support - Figure out what keeps decision-makers up at night, besides caffeine and existential dread.
• Determine information gaps - What do we know, what do we think we know (but are probably wrong about), and what do we have no clue about?
• Formulate clear questions - Transform "I'm worried about Country X" into specific, answerable questions that don't make analysts want to change careers.
• Prioritize ruthlessly - Unless you have unlimited resources and immortal analysts, you can't answer everything. Choose wisely.
• Validate with stakeholders - Make sure you're answering the questions they actually need answered, not the ones you think they should care about.
• Communicate to collectors - Translate your requirements into collector-speak, which is a different dialect than decision-maker-speak or analyst-speak.
• Review and refine - As new information comes in or the situation changes, update your requirements. Yesterday's critical question might be today's "who cares?"

Common Requirements Pitfalls (That You'll Fall Into Anyway)

• The "Boil the Ocean" Requirement - Asking for so much information that fulfilling it would require more personnel than currently employed in the entire intelligence community
• The "Mind Reader" Requirement - Asking for information that would require telepathic abilities to collect
• The "Time Machine" Requirement - Needing information yesterday about something that happened today
• The "Moving Target" Requirement - Constantly changing what you're asking for, ensuring that no one can ever actually answer it
• The "Jargon Jungle" Requirement - Using so many acronyms and technical terms that even subject matter experts need a translator