Online Course Open to Alumni

Ever thought about continuing your Truman education outside of Kirksville? Check out “Intelligence Analysis Tools.” On first blush, one might think this graduate level course is for someone wanting to go into espionage. Really, this online course is all about analytic decision making based on data; perfect for those of you in business, education, leadership and government fields.

Perhaps the primary task of leadership is decision-making: decisions regarding the allocation of resources, decisions related to the resolution of conflicts, decisions reconciling the vision of possibilities with the reality on the ground. Oftentimes we think that effective leaders are simply endowed with superior decision-making talent – the “born leader” scenario – but any leader’s decision-making ability can be augmented through the use of tools or techniques developed by intelligence analysts.

This course heightens decision-making ability through the study and application of discrete analysis methods, including: the examination of common “booby traps” to effective decision-making (negative heuristics), the OODA loop (rapid iterative decision-making), the management and decomposition of various forms of data, the identification of key indicators, analysis of competing hypotheses, the contrarian analysis (e.g., devil’s advocacy) and Pareto analysis.

Whether you think this course could help you in future business ventures, aid you in fostering critical thinking in your classroom, or if you just want to be the next Mr. Bond, we encourage you to take a closer look into Intelligence Analysis from Truman. This course is offered during the May Interim, May 10-31. For more information, head to institute.truman.edu, or contact the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Kevin Minch, at kminch@truman.edu.

Next