STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT REFLECTION Essay Example

Strategic Assessment Reflection

Strategic Assessment Reflection

According to Intelligent Search Solution (2000), ‘intelligence is a process of collecting raw data, filtering, analyzing, and coming up with a logical conclusion’ (p.48). Intelligence analysis enable researchers to describe the past, the present, and the future of a theme or subject. The process exposes a person to various lessons, one of them being the existence of a wide range of information. As an illustration, when I was handling the strategic assessment on the ‘Current State of Violent Crime in Western Australia’, I accessed a variety of documents online. Although I only used Google and Bing search engines, which according to Zetteo (2015) only display results from 5% of the internet, I was able to gather enough information for writing up my report. However, I also learnt that availability of more information does not ascertain that it is better. When I was doing my assignment, I could come across sources that displayed contradicting information. For instance, while the Wikipedia indicates that the population of Gascoyne is 14,500, the Department of Planning estimates the population to be at 10,000 (Department of Planning, 2017). Therefore, the intelligence analysts have an important task of differentiating between the credible and the unreliable sources.

As an intelligence analyst, I handled some tasks pertaining the strategic assessment well. One of these tasks was the identification of credible sources. I was able to identify some government sources that were relevant to the research topic. I used the internet search techniques, such as using key words to look for relevant materials through the search engines (Basic internet search techniques, 2006). I then selected some government websites that had the data that I required. These sources have a high reputation of displaying accurate data, frequently update information, and are not biased. I was also to incorporate statistics. Figures improve the ability of the analyst to draw unbiased conclusions. For instance, I gave a summary of violent crimes in the different regions in Western Australia; hence, one can conclude that Kimberly has the highest crime rate while South West has the lowest. Thirdly, I was able to compare other parts of the world with Western Australia. Issuing data from the area of focus alone can limit an understanding of whether the crime rate is high or low in relation to other regions. From the study, Australia has lower rates; however, there is need to develop mitigation strategies since the rates are considerably high.

There are some tasks that I was not able to handle competently, one of them being the use of unreliable sources. I used Wikipedia, a website that is not reliable due to the high probability of issuing nonfactual data. As previously indicated, the website displays different statistics of the population of Gascoyne from the government websites. Another task that I performed poorly was data analysis. I mostly focused on making direct quotations from the sources instead of summarizing the information and showing its relevance and relation to the topic. For instance, I highlighted the factors that promote violent crime instead of discussing them and showing their relationship to crime. As a result, there was no logical conclusion on how the factors could be altered to reduce the crime level in the region (Intelligent Search Solution, 2000). There was also limited focus on the topic. Most of the sections of the work focused on issues that had limited contribution to the work. For example, I took approximately two pages discussing the meaning of violent crime from Wikipedia instead of only stating the definition that could be used and focusing more on crime rate variation in Western Australia and discussing the factors contributing to the crime rates in the different regions.

Although I did not perform well as an intelligence analyst, there will arise numerous opportunities in the future would handle various tasks differently when given another chance. For instance, I would make use of reliable sources. I would pay closer attention to Intelligent Search Solution (2000), which aids one to identify nonbiased, credible, veracious, unique, current, and relevant sources. I would also pay closer attention to the research question. This would help identify the areas that do not require extensive coverage and those that require in-depth analysis (Basic and advanced internet search techniques, 2012). As a result, I would relate all the findings to the topic and make logical conclusions that would be effective for making crucial decisions, such as forming and modifying policies.

References

2006. ‘Basic internet search techniques’, I-1 – I-9.

2012. ‘Basic and advanced internet search techniques’, c-1 – c-9.

Department of Planning. (2017). Gascoyne. Retrieved from https://www.planning.wa.gov.au/665.aspx

Intelligent Search Solution (2000). Intelligence gathering: Evaluating sources for objective analysis. ABI/INFORM Global, 24(1), 47-50.

Zetteo, R. (2015). Darpa is developing a search engine for the dark web. Intuitive Technology, p1-9.