Failures are all too often attributed to decision maker's inattention to unpopular viewpoints or the lack of access to higher levels of authority by dissenting consensus. Reducing the chances of such mistakes, command authority should propose institutionalizing a balanced, open, and carefully managed process of consensus, so that no relevant assessments will be ignored by unchallenged preconceptions or biased bureaucratic positioning. The goal should be objective and formalized through multiple advocacy for the purpose of helping, not hindering in the decision making process. Ambiguity should be highlighted with the intent of winnowing out unsubstantiated premises and assumptions about ends-means linkages. In context of data overload, uncertainty, and time constraints, multiple advocacy would be effective in giving all viewpoints irrespective of empirical knowledge and allow a decision maker options whichever accords with his predisposition.
Estimative redundancy according to logic requires more analysis rather than the norm.
The size of the CIA's intelligence directorate and the complexity of the intelligence production process in the past precluded close association between policymakers and analysts, between the intelligence product and informed intelligence analysis. Streamlining is most essential for clarity and acuity. Principals charged with scrutinizing numerous contrasting estimates are constantly overwhelmed by administrative responsibilities and action items. Consumers traditionally want coordinated analyses in order to save time and effort. The DIA for example, was created to reduce intelligence production duplication of the Armed Services but was outsized in less than a decade and they emerged larger than the intended role DIA was to play.