Intelligence collection management
One method is "semantic matchmaking" based on ontology, originally a field of philosophy but finding applications in intelligent searching.
Researchers match missions to the capabilities of available resources,[1] defining ontology as "a set of logical axioms designed to account for the intended meaning of a vocabulary".
"[citation needed] In NATO, the questions driving collection management are Priority Intelligence Requirements (PIR).
These questions, refined into Information Requirements (IRs), enable the Collection Manager (CM) to focus assets on a problem.
Weather, terrain, technical capabilities and opponents' countermeasures determine the potential for successful collection.
[citation needed] Despite the desirability of a given method, the information required may not be collectible due to interfering circumstances.
SIGINT might be desired, but terrain masking and technical capabilities of available platforms might require a space-based (or long-range) sensor or exploring whether HUMINT assets might be able to provide information.
The collection manager must take these effects into consideration and advise the commander on the situational awareness available for planning and execution.
While the CM is primarily concerned with collection, they must also know if analysis for the requested system has the resources to reduce and analyze the sensor data within a useful length of time.
Commanders and staff are accustomed to receiving quality imagery products and UAV feeds for planning and execution of their missions.
After an initial phase where field personnel decided priorities, an interim period began in which requirements were considered "as desirable but were not thought to present any special problem.
Requirements may be cast in terms of analysis technique, collection method, subject matter, source type or priority.
We lack a vigorous exchange of views between generalists and specialists, requirements officers and administrators, members of all agencies, analysts in all intelligence fields, practitioners of all collection methods, which might lead at least to a clarification of ideas and at best to a solution of some common problems.
Heffter's paper centers on the management of priorities for the use of collection assets; three factors which must be balanced are: " ... Each of the three kinds answers a deep-felt need, has a life of its own, and plays a role of its own in the total complex of intelligence guidance".
Under this interpretation, one person (the "customer") makes a request (or puts a question) to another of equal status (the collector) who fulfills (or answers) it as best they can.
The use of direct requests appeals to collectors, who find that it provides them with more viable, collectible requirements than any other method.
CRM, ERM and social-networking software routinely build ad hoc alliances for specific projects (see NATO Collection Guidance, above).
Intelligence requirements in the PRL may be crafted to elicit information from a specific source, sidestepping a request process which could have ended in denial.
Revised three times a year, they are the most up-to-date requirement statements and their main subject is current affairs of political significance.
Although the inventory of needs is a valuable analytical instrument in the intelligence-production office which originates it, it cannot set priorities.
They are most useful in the following circumstances: Technical collection methods are the least ambiguous, with meaningful priorities and actual, scheduled resources.
Agencies requiring HUMINT prepare lists of priorities which establish goals, provide a basis for planning and summarize the information needs of consumers.
Most requirements fall into this category, including the majority of those with requirement-tracking identifiers in a community-wide numbering system administered by a central group.
In clandestine collection, solicited requirements are regularly used for legal travelers, for defectors and returnees, and for others whose capability or knowledge can be used only through detailed guidance or questioning.
In U.S. practice,[8] a typical system, using the basic A-F and 1-6 conventions below, comes from (FM 2-22.3, Appendix B, Source and Information Reliability Matrix).
Similarly, technical collection may have uncertainty about a specific report, such as partial cloud cover obscuring a photograph.
If they describe rocket details making no more sense than a low-budget science-fiction movie, such a report should be discounted (a component of the source rating known as appropriateness).
One example came from World War II, when U.S. Navy cryptanalysts intercepted a message in the JN-25 Japanese naval cryptosystem clearly related to an impending invasion of "AF".
