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Establish an Active Intelligence System |
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Establish a methodology for processing information. |
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Organize Your Information Flow: The process of gathering intelligence is one of collecting and filtering. All information is not useful. Too much information can make it difficult to separate the useful from the useless. One of the key decisions in processing information is how to be selective in the information flow to each level of management. |
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The ultimate solution is a combination of: |
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| Structure which sizes the organization's decision making process | | Good information available at all levels | | Personal reconnaissance on the part of decision makers at every level |
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Make Information Useful: To make scattered information useful, it has to be pulled together piece by piece and developed to form distinct patterns to enlighten all echelons. This coordinating process is what makes intelligence useful. Confronted with a task and not having enough information to perform the task, an organization may either: |
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Centralize: This keeps decision thresholds high and will increase the information flow. It will also require more information processing capability, thereby becoming more complex. |
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Decentralize: Divide the task into parts and establish focal points to deal with each part. This will relocate the decision thresholds to lower levels.
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Most often, the best choice will be to decentralize and segment the task into manageable parts. This requires management that is willing to accept less certainty at the top in order to have more certainty at the bottom. |
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Systems Are Not Solutions: It is not really the command structure that determines the information system; rather, it is the ability to absorb and process information that determines what can be the most effective command structure. |
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Often the new communications technologies mask the subtleties of human interface and take on a life of their own. The problem is not the existence of the new information system; the problem is that we view "the system" as "the solution." |
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