ODNI’s solution to emerging problems

Instead of following previous standard operating procedures of solving new problems with old solutions like creating new centers and hiring more analysts to fulfill new, more complex requests from modern day customers, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) decided to improve the situation at hand without requiring additional limited resources. The ODNI’s resolution instead was to use a “mapping exercise” to “determine where the IC had sufficient expertise…, where gaps existed… and where there was potential to ‘grow’ expertise” (Fingar, 2011, p. 20).

Fingar (2011) introduces three major objectives to collaborating experts throughout the intelligence field – (1) to routinely integrate “outside experts” into the IC for fresh perspectives; (2) use them as “sounding boards for ideas;” and (3) to “nurture these relationships so they could be activated immediately in the event of a crisis or extremely short fuse requirements” (p. 23). It is evident that collaboration is necessary in order to eliminate deficiencies, redundancies, and intelligence gaps. It adds on to the holistic perspective and ensures that every possible prediction is brought to the table.

Despite these advantages, there will always be a downfall to sharing information among different organizations beyond and within the IC, e.g., compromising covert “sources and methods” (Fingar, 2011, p. 23). To decrease these concerns, it would be imperative to create a specific criterion in order to provide a controlled outflow of situation critical information while eliminating the outflow of unnecessary information. The validity of information received from outside experts greatly diminishes since resources and techniques are virtually 100 percent unverifiable.