page_title: Intelligence cycle management
section_title: Management of the intelligence cycle
hierarchical_section_title: Intelligence cycle management / Overview / Management of the intelligence cycle
caption_attribution_description: English: The Intelligence Process as described by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in JP 2-0. It shows the six interrelated categories of intelligence operations characterized by broad activities conducted by intelligence staffs and organizations for the purpose of providing commanders and national-level decision makers with relevant and timely intelligence.
context_page_description: Intelligence cycle management refers to the overall activity of guiding the intelligence cycle, which is a set of processes used to provide decision-useful information to leaders. The cycle consists of several processes, including planning and direction, collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and production, and dissemination and integration. The related field of counterintelligence is tasked with impeding the intelligence efforts of others. Intelligence organizations are not infallible but, when properly managed and tasked, can be among the most valuable tools of management and government.
  The principles of intelligence have been discussed and developed from the earliest writers on warfare to the most recent writers on technology. Despite the most powerful computers, the human mind remains at the core of intelligence, discerning patterns and extracting meaning from a flood of correct, incorrect, and sometimes deliberately misleading information.
context_section_description: One basic model of the intelligence process is called the "intelligence cycle". This model can be applied  and, like all basic models, it does not reflect the fullness of real-world operations.  Intelligence is processed information. The activities of the intelligence cycle obtain and assemble information, convert it into intelligence and make it available to its users. The intelligence cycle comprises five phases:
  Planning and Direction: Deciding what is to be monitored and analyzed. In intelligence usage, the determination of intelligence requirements, development of appropriate intelligence architecture, preparation of a collection plan, issuance of orders and requests to information collection agencies.
  Collection: Obtaining raw information using a variety of collection disciplines such as human intelligence (HUMINT), geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) and others.
  Processing: Refining and analyzing the information
  Analysis and production: The data that has been processed is translated into a finished intelligence product, which includes integrating, collating, evaluating, and analyzing all the data.
  Dissemination: Providing the results of processing to consumers (including those in the intelligence community), including the use of intelligence information in net assessment and strategic gaming.
  A distinct intelligence officer is often entrusted with managing each level of the process.
  In some organisations, such as the UK military, these phases are reduced to four, with the "analysis and production" being incorporated into the "processing" phase.  These phases describe the minimum process of intelligence, but several other activities also come into play.  The output of the intelligence cycle, if accepted, drives operations, which, in turn, produces new material to enter another iteration of the intelligence cycle.  Consumers give the intelligence organization broad directions, and the highest level sets budgets.
  Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) describes an activity that synchronizes and integrates the planning and operation of sensors, assets, and processing, exploitation, and dissemination systems in direct support of current and future operations. This is an integrated intelligence and operations function.
  Sensors (people or systems) collect data from the operational environment during the collection phase, which is then converted into information during the processing and exploitation phase. During the analysis and production phase, the information is converted into intelligence.
caption: The Intelligence Process or Cycle
exif: {}