cfrick 's Profile

The discussion is organized around six key steps in the analytical process: defining the problem, generating hypotheses, collecting information, evaluating hypotheses, selecting the most likely hypothesis, and the ongoing monitoring of new information.

One guideline for identifying unlikely events that merit the specific allocation of resources is to ask the following question: Are the chances of this happening, however small, sufficient that if policymakers fully understood the risks, they might want to make contingency plans or take some form of preventive or preemptive action? If the answer is yes, resources should be committed to analyze even what appears to be an unlikely outcome.