Information, Knowledge and Agile Creativity

3Monitoring and the Intelligence Cycle

Information is a key element in decision-making. The OODA loop model we are following here (see Chapter 1) devotes an important place to regular access to information to adapt decisions to environmental changes. But since the quantities of information available began to evolve exponentially, the problem is no longer being informed, but being informed effectively. Monitoring attempts to solve this difficult problem. We present it here starting from some of its facets by detailing some of its means and practices on the basis of the intelligence cycle, each step of which is focused on information: expression of need, collection (of data and information), processing and analysis, and dissemination of results.

3.1. Monitoring and its forms

When we talk about monitoring, it is preferable to speak of this term in the plural. There are thus many ways to practice monitoring. They are distinguished by the way in which the people in charge of them understand the iterative process, which ranges from the acquisition of useful information to its dissemination in a form adapted to its exploitation according to the context and the recipient concerned. In general, at least in France, for the past 20 years or so, it has been customary to refer to the experimental definition proposed by AFNOR (French standardization association) in order to clarify what monitoring is:

[A] continuous and largely iterative activity aimed actively at monitoring the technological, ...