private/academic partnership in intelligence analysis training

Private/Academic Partnership in Intelligence

Analysis TrainingThe South African experience

Monterey - False Bay, Cape Town

False Bay, Cape Town

Cape Agulhas

God’s Window, Mpumalanga

Sossus Vlei, Namibia

Zambezi River, Katima Mulilo, Border Namibia & Zambia

Background

• Political analyst with Foreign Intel Agency

• Training and KM specialist in Domestic Intel Agency

• Started own training & consulting company in 2007

Our education system

“The NQF is intended to overcome theimbalances created from the apartheid education and training systems and bring together, under a single overarching qualifications framework, the certification of learning in a range of settings”.

Advanced Certificate 1( year)

yyyyy( 1 )NQF 5level

NQF 8level

NQF 6level

NQF 7level

Diploma (3 )years

Advanced Diploma (1 )year

Bachelors degree (3 )years

Advanced Diploma (1 )year

Bachelors degree (4 )years

NQF 10level

NQF 9level

Bachelors Honours degree (1 )year

Post Grad Diploma (1 )year

Masters Degree (2 )years

Doctorate Degree (3 )years

Academic Professional

SA National Qualifications

Framework 2009

Short coursesWhole qual & US

QA by SETA’s

Diploma in Intelligence Analysis

• 2003 - 2004 • Interdepartmental SGB• How we would like analysts to be &

what they should be able to do • Integrating profile, job descriptions

and competencies• Fundamental, core and elective

unit standards (modules)

The Harsh Reality

✖ Lack of political leadership to enforce

✖ No uptake @ gov schools (lack of capacity, disinterest)

✖ SETA’s incompetence discredits system

✔ 1st time all agreed on intel terminology

✔ The process has been more important than the outcome

Personal journey …

Approach to Intelligence Analysis

• Broader, integrative Decision-support function rather than secret state function

• Turning data/information into actionable knowledge

• Applicable to all spheres where sense has to be made of myriad of conflicting, sometimes deceptive information to enable decision-making

Looking for an academic home…

• Unique challenges in SA• Looking at the How (IA)

rather than What (Intelligence Studies)

• Universities’ attitude towards Intel

Academic partnership

www.infoscience.sun.ac.za

Interdisciplinary?

• Interdisciplinarity : transfer of methods from one discipline to another

Multidisciplinary?

Overflows disciplinary

boundaries while its goal remains limited to the framework of disciplinary

researchA steak is a steak..

Transdisciplinarity

“pooling of disciplinary knowledge and information, technological revolutions, and the creation of networks and new forms of

knowledge”  (Kleiber 2002)

Attempts to approach the object of study beyond and

across disciplinary and interdisciplinary

perspectives

Transdisciplinarity

Society

Organizational theory

Group Dynamics

Structures & Processes

Organizational Learning

Systems & Project Design

Diversity, Change & Transformation

Communication

The Knowledge Economy

Network Society

Society of organizations

Globalization

Organization

Group

Individual

MIKM: Two Human Dimensions

Organizational dynamics

Knowledge society

KNOWLEDGE DYNAMICS

Taxonomies and ontologies

Research logic

Complexity and Systems

Scenario Building

Sense making

Artificial Intelligence

KM System Architecture

Decision Support Systems

Knowledge System Design

E-Business Modeling

Information management

MIKM:Two Knowledge Dimensions

KNOWLEDGE TECHNOLOGIES

Organisation

Group&Team

Individual

Organisation

Group&Team

Individual

Organisation

Group&Team

Individual Organis

ation

Group&Team

Individual

Organisation

Group&Team

Individual

Organisation

Group&Team

Individual

Organisation

Group Team

Individual

Organisation

Group&Team

Individual

Organisation

Group&Team

Individual

KN

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LE

DG

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EC

HN

OL

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Y

KN

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DG

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Programme Model

Core learnings

• Its not about Things• But about flows & spaces

Partnership

• Short courses• Moderate & certify• Accreditation as electives for Post

Grad Diploma in Decision-making 2010

• Benefits for university• Benefits for me

Philosophy

• Prismatic learning/analysis… • Robert Flood (Rethinking the Fifth

Discipline: learning within the unknowable)

• It challenges our existing mental models and create a conceptual space in which some new understanding of what is happening emerges

• Powerful metaphor for creative & transformational thinking

Prismatic learning in practice

Application

• What can one achieve in a week?• Main learning outcomes:

– Cognitive dissonance – no mans land – journey towards self awareness & mindfulness

• Complex, multi-dimensional case study

• Collaboration• Puzzles

Lessons learnt

• It’s actually about LEARNING, not training or education.

• “Standards” should be signposts not straightjackets

• Don’t be fixated on what makes intelligence special (?) – it alienates

• Y-generation: plugged-in rather than degreed

• By “stealth” rather than “big bang”

Future for intelligence learning

• Conduct intelligence!• Break the silo’s and ingrained

mindsets• Stay in the flow! Stay relevant!• Strengthen lifelong learning

perspective• Broadening the scope

The future (now?): knowledge workers

Prismatic Research on:

• Decision-making/Intelligence/intelligence management in complexity and uncertainty (Mittleton-Kelly, Bennets)

• Sensemaking (Karl Weick, Devlin)• 3rd generation KM: knowledge

transfer, story-telling, Cynefin, trust culture, collaboration

• Chaos theory – Zimbabwe? South Africa?

Thank you!dalene@4knowledge.co.za