CIA's Analytic Primer
Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis
If you are interested in adopting an analytic mindset, the CIA’s 2009 Tradecraft Primer is one good place to start.
(If you can’t download the file, here is the link.)
The CIA has led intelligence communities around the world (including some of its adversaries) in seeking to apply objective scientific methods to intelligence analysis. Sherman Kent — the founding father of CIA intelligence analysis — came to intelligence from academia at a time when Karl Popper and his critical rationalism dominated the academic world.
Subsequent generations have continued to develop the approach in parallel with developments in academia. Richard Heuer is probably the most famous second generation developers of tradecraft. He focused on the distortive effects of biases and heuristics, and sought to correct those through structured analytic techniques.
This brief primer contains basic techniques that analysts in most intelligence communities learn at a very early stage. But beyond the tools, this primer is particularly useful in that it conveys the professional approach of intelligence analysis. It’s well worth a read for anybody who is campaigning for anything.