Information Environment Advanced Analysis

Introduction to the Global Information Environment – Provides students with an overview of the new realities of the Digital Age and the complex global information environment, including concepts, techniques, constructs, lexicon and relationships to doctrine that will be used throughout the course.

Critical Thinking – Students learn techniques to adaptively apply when analyzing and challenging conventional wisdom, understand how adversaries think, and comprehend how critical thinking supports mission analysis – across the information environment and in numerous other domains.

Information Environment Decomposition – Students learn systems theory, approaches and analytic techniques with which to decompose systems, subsystems and attributes comprising an information environment.

Behavioral Influence – Students learn analytic and holistic concepts to understand the decision-making calculus within the information environment as related to decision makers; includes will, human factors, group dynamics, prospect theory, and social identity theory. The focus is on developing capabilities related to influencing the decisions and behaviors of various target audiences.

Information Environment Characterization – Students learn to create a textual and visual understanding of the problem they are addressing within the global information environment. This includes explaining systems, subsystems and attributes and to apply link, culture, semiotic, pattern, trend and anomaly analyses. Students also apply systems theory concepts and interrelationships, aggregation analysis and systems emergence.

Forecasting – Students engage in recomposition and synthesis of the current state to determine what may happen with the problem set and what they may be able to do about it. This leads them to anticipatory analysis, in which the students develop two future states using verbal and visual depictions to get a sense of what the problem may look like if it is not addressed with any measure of effectiveness, and what it may look like if it is actioned with greater effectiveness.

Sense Making – Students apply an information environment framework and a hierarchy of effort to align activities and effects to achieve objectives and an end-state. They examine how components of will and capability interact to reach the desired end-state they are tasked to meet. Students learn operational design techniques and begin developing an operational approach (draft course of action).

Global Planning – This block of instruction introduces students to a range of crucial planning and operational concepts and approaches. They receive instruction in integrated planning and campaigning—the indispensable art of conducting continuous planning and operations in parallel to deal with fast-moving, digital age problems. They also engage with the means for developing a whole-of-governments and whole-of-alliances approach, bringing as many important players from across the globe and various organizations as possible into the effort to address the problem at hand. Through the use of case studies, students also learn how to engage in Narrative Warfare, winning the battle for the narrative using effective meta-narratives, narratives, and messages.

Wargaming – Students learn to manage risk, think like the adversary and other actors, and discern nth-order effects by applying wargaming and red-teaming methods and techniques. Students learn to use an action-reaction-counteraction methodology to learn how wargamers and red-teamers should interact to ensure the plan is as thorough as possible and that they are anticipating adversary actions to the greatest possible degree.

Assessment — Students learn assessment terminology, techniques, and approaches. Measures of Effectiveness, Measure of Effectiveness Indicators, and Measures of Performance receive significant emphasis. Students are required to develop an assessment methodology and specific criteria for the problem they are working.

Capstone Practical Exercise (PE) – The capstone PE is delivered in two phases providing students with a realistic scenario within which they can apply all concepts, techniques and constructs learned throughout the course. Phase I consists of a 2.5-hour oral examination to ensure students have grasped of IEAA concepts and contexts; phase II is 8 hours of concept and technique application culminating with each small group delivering a thorough 45-minute IE recommendation to a senior leader panel.

JMark Services, Inc., has developed and currently teaches and administers an Information Environment Advanced Analysis (IEAA) course sponsored by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSD(I)).  This is the only advanced analysis course available for intelligence analysts interacting with planners and operators from across all military services within the Global Information Environment (GIE).  The ideal candidates for this course include officers in the O-3 to O-5 range; officers in the O-1 and O-2 range with prior enlisted experience who have experience working informational aspects of complex problems; warrant officers in the WO-2 to WO-4 range; enlisted personnel in the E-4 to E-8 range; and civilians in the GG/GS-11 to GG/GS-14 range.  We accept others on a case-by-case basis.

This Joint-Staff certified and Joint credit-awarding course focuses on the ways in which the proliferation of information and information systems creates a distinct operating environment – the GIE – within what is now commonly referred to as the Digital Age.  Course mentors help students understand how to engage in careful and coordinated analysis, planning, and operations within the GIE to help the DoD and its partners achieve end-states and objectives across the spectrum of conflict.  The course content is designed to give students varied approaches and insights to help them and their commanders to seize and hold the initiative within complex problem and mission sets and, to the extent possible, achieve objectives short of armed conflict.

Our rigorous, two-week IEAA courses equip analysts, planners, and operators with concepts, techniques, and constructs enabling them to analyze a complex problem situation, anticipate how to achieve an end-state favorable to U.S. interests, and devise an operational approach (recommended draft course of action) to help a commander determine how to seize and sustain the initiative in the GIE, making extensive use of the informational instrument of power along with others, to achieve an  end-state and supporting objectives.  Students develop will- and capabilities-based activities and effects within the GIE to achieve their objectives and end-state in support of strategic priorities.  The course also gives students detailed approaches and tools for assessing progress toward achieving effects, objectives, and end-states.  These include measures of effectiveness, measures of performance, and effectiveness indicators.  This focus on assessment, and specifically on MOEs, MOPs, and MOEIs, is useful throughout the range of conflict, from information-driven to lethal  problem sets.

Seasoned mentors cover key course concepts, approaches, and tools within the context of real-world problem sets and practical exercises, resulting in a rich learning experience that students can carry back to their duty stations. As a result, course graduates from operations, plans, and intelligence organizations are better able to characterize, forecast, target, wargame, and assess the IE in support of a commander’s decision-making process and the achievement of national security objectives.

In addition to members of the joint U.S. military community, law enforcement, Intelligence Community, and Department of State professionals have graduated from the IEAA course and have successfully applied course concepts and techniques in such areas as special operations, counterterrorism, and gang and narcotics enforcement.

These courses feature highly interactive instruction in plenary and small-group settings, a challenging and realistic practical exercise, rigorous study and reading programs, and teaching/mentoring teams comprised entirely of senior leaders and educators. All IEAA courses include the following expertise, resources, and deliverables:

• Senior IEAA educators/mentors and course administrators who conduct, teach, administer, and evaluate the course for up to 30 students during a two-week period. Our senior educators/mentors are retired senior officers with senior command and staff experience in intelligence billets as well as significant planning and operations experience.
• Curricula, syllabi, lesson plans, extensive reading requirements, training and learning objectives, student workbooks and module packets, and an evaluation process that includes student performance assessment and continuous review of course progress, both during and after the course. (Note: course materials are available in hard copy or digital form.)
• Detailed, relevant practical exercises, based on real-world problems addressed in the National Security Strategy and National Military Strategy.  These include detailed baselines, decision-maker profiles, and daily scenario injects (each covering a one-month period) that facilitate and ensure student application and comprehension of advanced IE-related analytic techniques, methods, and concepts taught throughout the course.
• A 2.5-hour oral comprehensive examination administered to all students in the course.
• An 8-hour block to build an IE Recommendation Briefing for senior evaluators playing the role of a theater commander, political advisor, and other key leaders.  The 40-minute briefing showcases students’ learning and new skills and is followed by a rigorous question-and-answer session with the senior evaluators.
• Completion and assessment of detailed end-of-course critiques by all students at the conclusion of every course.  This continuous course critique and assessment process focuses on lessons learned, portions of the course to be sustained, and opportunities for improving specific aspects of the course.  Mentors and staff meet semi-annually for a Hot Wash in which key findings from the critique process are incorporated into the course, facilitating an iterative improvement that allows mentors to keep the course at the forefront of developing IE-related approaches, concepts, and practices.