National Interest Security Corporation An IBM Company An Introduction to Edge Methods Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence Analytics Solution Center, DC June 17, 2010 IBM Global Business Services - US Federal Team 15036 Conference Center Drive Suite 500 East, Chantilly, VA 20151 An-Jen Tai and Geoff Working Defense and Intelligence Industry atai@us.ibm.com, 571-266-6059 gworking@us.ibm.com , 571-266-6061 ©2010 IBM Corporation Managing large volumes of data can be overwhelming, deriving insights from your data is invaluable – our approach Our goal today is to provide you with a better appreciation of how we tackle today’s seminar topic within the Defense and Intelligence community At the root of our client engagements lie: Large volumes of structured and unstructured data Existing and future capability needs Urgency to make large-scale decisions We orient our practitioners and projects around an empiricallybased analytical framework called Edge Methods We will provide you real-life case studies where we have employed these methods to create value for our clients Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 2 ©2010 IBM Corporation Our BAO-Intelligence team provides domain knowledge and expertise in integrating business and technology services Empirically-based performance analysis and deep client domain expertise are at the heart of our consulting engagements Edge Methods (our consulting model) – integrates commercial consulting methods with tacit knowledge of the mission, delivering work products and advice that improve operations and creates new capabilities Our empirical methods enhance rather than replace subject matter expert input into strategic planning and budgeting decision processes Our strategy methods assess multiple levers of organizational change and use value as a key discriminator 4 We are a learning organization – constantly improving our methods Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 3 Mission Focused – Performance Driven ©2010 IBM Corporation Edge Methods provide a quantitative approach to strategy and performance improvement Hypothesize •Inductive approach to problem solving, focuses data collection on key information •Goes beyond understanding a situation, identifies solutions from the beginning •Establishes clarity early, often in the midst of complexity and ambiguity Gather and Clean Data •Data is at the heart of our analysis and decision support process •Custom scripts and web crawling tools are used to collect, assemble and clean large volumes of data from databases, reports, spreadsheets and open sources. Analyze •Execute calculations relevant to hypotheses being tested •Statistical and geospatial analysis and modeling are performed using both off the shelf and custom built IT tools Visualize •Provide tailored interactive visualization tools to understand performance data •Custom designed AdvantEdge web application that integrates into client mission processes Synthesize and Identify •Hypothesis driven analysis yields synthesizes the data to provide actionable recommendations or support informed collaborative decision making •Improvement levers are identified and supported by quantitative analysis Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 4 ©2010 IBM Corporation We deliver high-quality, high-impact results across the community – mission focused, performance driven Client OSD/JCS CT ISR TF (AFG) Focus Areas • Plans/Budgeting • Mission Analysis • Program Strategy • Modeling/Simulation Edge Methods Description Delivering data-driven strategy solutions to aid current counterterrorism (CT) and counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts as well as to inform the posture of U.S. forces for the long-term SPIN • Mission Analysis Assessing the performance of the intelligence Hypotheses• Quantitative Analysis Driven Approach community in ongoing counter-terrorism (CT) efforts • Capability Development • ISR PED Process Imprv. • CONOP Development • Mission Analysis Quantitative Assessments Deck Writing Providing direct analytical and “wrenching” support to the ISR Task Force in support of the AFG Campaign Performance Improvements NGA Analysis & Production directorate: Combining performance-based assessments of GEOINT production, data visualizations, and executive decision support • Mission Analysis • Capability Development • Decision Support A sample of our current engagements Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 5 ©2010 IBM Corporation For the SECDEF, our assessments informed multi-billion dollar investments by the Secretary in major change Client: Secretary of Defense and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Challenge: Optimize a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio against the intelligence needs of Operation Iraqi Freedom Approach Assemble Ops and Intell Data Develop Mission Context Analyze Dataset Against Operations Synthesize Operations • Narrative reporting from human and signals intelligence • Systemic data from airborne collection platforms • Operational results • Three separate multi-week trips to Iraq theatre • Gathered over 1TB of additional data stored in theatre • Conducted series of empirical and logical tests to identify frequencies, relationships, and limiting factors • Quickly vetted and established preliminary insights • Refined findings and developed implications for programmatic budget decisions • Established performance baseline; identified capabilities most critical to mission performance and those with little contribution, including several surprises to conventional assertions of value • Empirical insight into force sizing for intelligence systems in Iraq drove significant programmatic changes to the FY09 and FY10 budgets Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 6 ©2010 IBM Corporation 6 The applied method in the OSD/JCS case quantified ISR value across 4,000 SOF operations in Iraq Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 7 ©2010 IBM Corporation We further enable Edge Methods through technology, allowing enterprise value to be assessed and visualized for decisions • Diverse categories of financial and mission performance data • Gather quantitative data from multiple datasets • Lightweight application for • Provide decision visualizing interactive framework to shape views of aggregated data analysis • Extract metadata from “Pivot table on steroids” • Stored in numerous within files and clean • Enable collaboration locations and repositories (spelling, typos, errors) • Control axes and filters to around decisions customize the view • Data exists in multiple file • Apply pre-established rule • Execute mission processes format types (databases, sets and algorithms to • Save views in a dashboard to develop decisional spreadsheets, documents) calculate enterprise value format for executive review products Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 8 ©2010 IBM Corporation In support of the national CT mission, we have helped analyze performance as well as create desktop performance analysis tools Challenge: Assessing the performance of the intelligence community in ongoing counter-terrorism (CT) efforts Approach Collection – analyzing collection reports through customized scripts and algorithms to score relevance through large volumes of reporting, displaying over 400,000 reports to Mission Managers via visualization capability Analysis – assessing finished intelligence, leveraging scoring algorithms to correlate approx. 750 key words/phrases against over 2,000 products per quarter, gaining efficiencies on the NCTC floor We are helping to drive informed decision-making within NCTC’s Mission Management office by delivering empirically-based results on critical mission objectives affecting our nation’s security Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 9 ©2010 IBM Corporation Delivering mission impact – at NGA/P we are blending empirically-driven analysis with technology enablement Client: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Analysis & Production Directorate (NGA/P). Over 2,000 analysts delivering timely and relevant GEOINT services to meet the needs of the Warfighter and Policy makers Challenge: How to assess and manage the analytical enterprise to ensure optimal performance is being achieved Approach Efficiency • Is NGA/P effectively measuring, tracking, and reporting its performance? Focus • Is NGA/P appropriately arrayed against key priorities (country/topic), and postured to answer intelligence gaps? Impact • Are NGA/P products, services, and analyses meaningful to its partners? 4 Capabilities provide the greatest mission impact when the development takes place alongside the mission 4 Through our analysis we are able to harvest 10+ years of mission data, identifying trends and outliers – informing decision-makers, delivering impact 4 Now providing data-to-the-desktop for over 125 managers within NGA/P Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 10 ©2010 IBM Corporation 10 For the ONCIX, we are employing a risk assessment approach that evaluates IC supply-chain vulnerabilities Client: Office of National Counter-Intelligence Executive (ONCIX) Challenge: Creating an approach and capabilities to assess and manage the increased risk to national security due to the global reliance on global supply-chain Approach Assemble Probabilistic Data and Feedback Formulate Evidence-based Models Conduct Analysis and Simulation Models Synthesize Operations and Develop Tools • Elicit feedback and harvest operational data to identify relationships between threats and supply chain • Generated models of the environment that predict risk • Established probabilistic metrics framework • Simulated the varying factors affecting supply chain risk • Enable “what if” experimentation and trends • Create interactive visualization of risk to facilitate better understanding Instituted analytical rigor providing a simple, but powerful approach – rooted in mathematical algorithms that are framed by operational data and provide analytically defensible decisions Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 11 ©2010 IBM Corporation In summary, Edge Methods helps clients define strategies, measure and improve performance, and drive impact Capabilities Impacts Performance Assessment Quantitative assessment of intelligence value to 4,000 special operations led to historic $1B DoD reprogramming for intelligence Differentiators: Identified major shift in intelligence production by quantifying performance of 1,000 analysts over a seven year period Strategic Management Providing technical, analytical, and program management support to critical homeland segments – cyber and infrastructure protection Differentiators: Helping the Dept. of Energy manage large programs including the Administration’s new $30B investment in energy technologies Operational Improvement Identifying intelligence improvements in Iraq and Afghanistan for ISR Task Force, JCS, and US CENTCOM Differentiators: Defining changes in counterintelligence tasking and production for the National Counterintelligence Executive Capability Design and Prototyping Drove requirements for redesign of Army’s intelligence force structure Differentiators: Prototyped and piloted automated mission management capability, enabling NCTC to assess performance from half million records Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence 12 ©2010 IBM Corporation