Abstract

A Structured Method of Geospatial Intelligence Analysis
Track: Defense and Intelligence
Authors: Todd Bacastow

Intelligence analysts have long benefitted from defined analytic methods in complex analytic activities. This is in contrast to the GEOINT community where problems are approached almost exclusively intuitively and by a trial and error use of analytic tools. This suggests that methodologies have been neglected by the GEOINT community. The Structured Geospatial Analytic Method (SGAM) is offered as a methodology for the GEOINT community. The methodology was derived from and incorporates aspects of both Pirolli and Card's sensemaking process and Heuer's Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) model, and is unique as it fuses spatial and non-spatial evidence in an environment of spatiotemporal thinking. The combination of a foraging loop, a sensemaking loop, and six well-defined steps each using specific Structured Analytic Techniques (SATs) coupled with the appropriate GIS operations, allows analysts to approach a geospatial problem from top-down or bottom-up. Most importantly, the SGAM is teachable, learnable, iterative, and repeatable.