Now, by whatever name they prefer,

Now, by whatever name they prefer, experienced analysts already rely on a variety of tools to jog and polish their analytic thinking. What is promoted here is more self-conscious, frequent, and disciplined use of devices that hold promise of wringing additional information, insights, and implications from their memory banks. The list that follows is selective and could easily be expanded from the inventories of veteran analysts, as well as from Heuer‘s many articles. Talking aloud to stimulate alternative patterns of language and argumentation, in order to get through difficult analytic patches in a written draft. Thinking backwards——from a seemingly unlikely future event, to necessary intermediate developments, to present circumstances——to overcome the natural propensity to call forth assumptions and data that support the most likely outcome. Brainstorming, to enlarge the tool of potentially useful insights by lowering the threshold for consideration from ―likely‖ to ―possible‖.