11
Generating Hypotheses
No feature of the strategic intelligence cycle could be more important or more demanding than the generation of ideas, opinions, and conclusions. This phase can represent the culmination of weeks or months of research by the analyst. Alternatively, the techniques used in critical thinking can be put to good use to help the analyst figure out just how the project should proceed. A hypothesis is often thought of as a theory waiting to be tested, or sometimes an answer that is not yet confirmed. Whatever the definitional phrase used by the intelligence community, the fact is that when you come to that point at which you can develop your hypotheses—ideas, views, or conclusions, whichever word you use—you have reached the epicenter of the strategic study. You have already undergone the learning and thinking process to reach it, and you now have to move beyond it into the arena of checking and testing. In the field of strategic intelligence, the technique of developing hypotheses is absolutely critical. This is because only in this field are you likely to be called upon to make judgments about the long-term future, about issues in breadth, about matters of inherent complexity and even some vagueness. You will have moved from the close and exciting work of target intelligence, serving tactical or operational aims, into a form of future research. Strategic intelligence demands a high degree of careful but nonetheless speculative thought about what could be happening. Herein lies the challenge of developing a good grasp of techniques to generate suitable, imaginative hypotheses.
151