INT 340 : Structured Analytic Techniques : Technique is Deployed in Ex

Structured Analysis Techniques Summary

Structured Brainstorming Technique

This technique is deployed in exhausting all the possible answers and explanations to what could be the cause of the death of a young Navajo couple. A team of participants is brought on brought and independently asked to express their views very briefly on what they think could be the most probable cause of the death (Beebe, 2011). Upon completion of the independent and monologue discussion expressed in paper, the information is collected by the team leader who brings them together treating them as equal to each other. Display the expressed ideas from the various participants so that they can be seen by all the participants in the exercise.

Each of the participants will take some time to internalize the ideas in which it is expected that from the displayed ideas, new and fresh ideas will emerge as improvements on the already presented thoughts. This will; form the basis of brainstorming where from the information presented by a participant, another will be able identify a thing or so that if added will make the idea or reasoning beyond or outside the box. More value will be attached to each of the ideas by the various participants and hence making those ideas no longer obvious thoughts but instead creative, well thought structured opinions around a theme (Beebe, 2011). Upon completion of making the constructive improvements, the ideas can then be classified into groups of similarity that would help in coming up with summarized but concrete explanations of the possible cause of death of the young Navajo couple.

Key Assumptions Check Technique

This is a technique which denotes that failure to acknowledge the assumptions made increases the chances of having a critical failure in the entire investigation. This technique has been used in affirming the analogy that the death of the young Navajo couple could be out of a virulent common flu virus (Intelligence, 2012). The analogy into the cause of death of the young Navajo couple as from a virulent common flu virus was established by having a group of participants brought from both the academic spheres and the local or those who had limited or no scientific understanding of the relations between human health and diseases and literally believed in th culturally and social aspects to offer explanations.

Each of the participants was independently asked to generate a list of the possible assumptions they would use in supporting the analogy after which the various assumptions were made public to all the participants to inject any that could have been forgotten by everyone. The assumptions are then analyzed based which involves possible explanations into why one would be confident enough to claim that an assumption is current and when if any can any of the assumptions be untrue. The relevance of the assumption over time that is borrowing from the past all the way to the current generation would also be established (Jr., 2014). From this the assumptions would be grouped into those that are supported fully, those that are supported but with possible gaps and those that have no basis to be supported as they are weak in evidence. Assumptions are used as the possible explanations of various phenomena upon identifying ion reasonable and suffice assumptions.

Analysis of Competing Hypotheses

This is a technique that offers an unbiased methodology that is used in the evaluation of various competing hypotheses for a group of observed data (Intelligence, 2012). For the case of delving into the causes of death of the young Navajo couple, a set of hypotheses could are developed among them the increase in the number of rodents increase diseases outbreak, changes in weather patterns influence the population of rodents and hence the likely of the flu among other hypotheses. A list of all the information that is perceived to be of importance is generated and the various assumptions, gaps, arguments and important evidence captured in the list.

The level of consistency of each of the hypothesis is established and ranked as highly consistent, consistent, highly inconsistent, not applicable, neutral or even inconsistent. This provided grounds upon which some of the hypotheses were eliminated. The credibility of each of the items which could be of relevant information is rated that offers an opportunity to eliminate the irrelevant information (Beebe, 2011). The hypotheses that are left after the rating and assessment based on the relevance to the information is refined to find out the possible of merging two or more hypotheses and coming up with new hypotheses. Conclusions are made on the possibility of each of the hypotheses based on the scores of inconsistency and thereafter interpretations of the most critical information items of the hypotheses. The consistency of a hypothesis to the relevant information on the possible causes of the death of the young Navajo couple determines the strength of the hypothesis.

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