text: Chapter 8
  EFFECTIVE INTELLIGENCE PRODUCTS
  8-137. Through analysis, the G-2/S-2 identifies indicators of enemy activity, which can present
  opportunities or risks to friendly forces. Understanding these opportunities or risks is an important part of
  achieving situational understanding to leverage friendly capabilities against threat forces at the right time and
  place. Ultimately, effective intelligence products should be tailored to the commander’s needs, continuously
  updated, and provided within the unit’s battle rhythm in the commander’s preferred format. Intelligence
  analysts should understand not only their units’ operations but also their higher and subordinate forces’
  missions, key tasks, and end state. This ensures intelligence analysts have an operational context to provide
  more effective intelligence products.
  8-138. In offensive and defensive operations, analysts must gear their efforts to the time available and
  provide the best possible intelligence products within condensed timelines. Operational planning and
  planning deadlines often impose challenging time constraints that analysts must meet. Analysts must often
  produce intelligence products without all the information to reach a more thorough or certain situational
  understanding. A quick analytical assessment in time to affect staff planning and friendly COAs is better than
  a perfect analytical assessment received too late to affect staff planning. Meeting analytical deadlines includes
  presenting intelligence products, assessments, conclusions, or projections about the AO and threat forces in
  a format that assists the commander and staff in achieving situational understanding.
  THE COMMON INTELLIGENCE PICTURE
  8-139. Maintaining the CIP during large-scale combat operations has its challenges. Dynamics on the
  battlefield can impact maintaining the CIP and the resulting situational understanding. G-2/S-2s must
  consider threat actions, friendly operations on the move, and other challenges like degraded communications
  that create intelligence latency and degrade populating and disseminating the CIP. Analog processes must be
  in place to maintain the CIP when conditions dictate, such as during a high tempo. Architecture connectivity
  concerns must be addressed in unit PACE plans.
  8-140. Providing situational understanding of the OE is the main goal when developing and presenting the
  CIP. The CIP drives the staff’s actions to counter the threat; therefore, the G-2/S-2 must consider the
  effectiveness of the intelligence. This enables the G-2/S-2 to effectively inform planning and decision making
  as well as provide a more holistic assessment of threat activities. Sharing and having access to the CIP allows
  multiple entities in different locations to gain and maintain situational understanding of enemy activities.
  This also enriches analysis, which can be conducted by multiple units, organizations, and agencies.
  8-141. Information gained to develop and maintain the CIP derives from several sources, including but not
  limited to—
  ⚫ Collection assets.
  ⚫ All-source reporting.
  ⚫ Tactical reports.
  ⚫ Reporting from individual intelligence disciplines.
  ⚫ SALUTE and/or spot reports.
  ⚫ Staff running estimates.
  ⚫ Allied- and partner-nation reporting.
  8-142. The commander’s requirements largely drive how data, information, and intelligence are depicted
  on a CIP. (See figure 8-8.)