Quantitative Intelligence Analysis describes the model-based method of intelligence analysis that represents the analyst’s mental models of a subject, as well as the analyst’s reasoning process exposing what the analyst believes about the subject, and how they arrived at those beliefs and converged on analytic judgments. It
I came across this book while I was looking for books on Mental Models and/or Decision-Making focus on Business or Project Management. The title caught my attention and decided to read it.
The book is oriented to people who are curious to have a very high level of understanding on how intelligence agencies uses modeling, analytic games, simulation, applying mental models to capture and manipulate information, sharing data across multidisciplinary teams.
Despite I’m not the target audience, I was very interested in seeing the complexity involved and the amount of intellectual work behind when dealing with global issues. I have to say that this book helped me to understand concepts like “critical thinking”, “sense making” and apply to my current job.
The title is a bit misleading: the book is less about quantitative modeling and more about modeling in general. A very dense book but incredibly useful, particularly the two middle chapters on modeling ones thought process. If you want to learn how to think better and/or externalize your thought process, I recommend this book.
I'm not an intelligence analyst--- I did not find most of the mental models in this book new or innovative, and for the most part, non-applicable to most real world decisions/analysis. That being said, for someone just starting out at an intelligence agency, this would likely make an excellent starting guide.