Intelligence Collection Disciplines

Intelligence Collection Disciplines

Purpose

Stop doing competitive research like a term paper. The intelligence community solved this problem decades ago: they don't collect "data," they run collection disciplines — independent channels, each with its own sources, tradecraft, and blind spots — and then they fuse them. This skill gives product managers that playbook: eight disciplines, each telling you (1) what to collect, (2) where to collect it, (3) which signal → inference chains to run, and (4) which PM artifact it feeds (TAM/SAM/SOM, ICPs, personas, battle cards, roadmap bets, win/loss, positioning, pricing). One signal is an anecdote; three correlated signals from independent disciplines is intelligence.

Input

Works best with the six instantiation variables below — fill them once and every discipline becomes engagement-specific. Leave them blank and this stays a teaching artifact.

[TARGET]      = The competitor, partner, or acquirer you're researching
[MARKET]      = The category and its NAICS/SIC/NACE codes (or nearest equivalent)
[GEOGRAPHY]   = Regions in scope, at COUNTRY level, not continent level
[BUYER]       = Who signs the check (drives review sites, job titles, conferences)
[CAPABILITY]  = The strategic move you suspect (platform play, market entry,
                pricing shift, compliance land-grab, etc.)
[DECISION]    = What this research will change (roadmap bet, positioning,
                pricing, market entry, deal defense, ICP refresh)

If [DECISION] is blank, stop. Research without a decision is a hobby.

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended ARGUMENTS: line — counts as variables already filled. Use it; don't re-ask.

Arriving empty-handed? That works too. Read the disciplines as a course in tradecraft, or ask the agent to walk the instantiation block with you one variable at a time.

Example invocation: Use intelligence-collection-disciplines — [TARGET]: Meridian Freight Systems, [CAPABILITY]: suspected move into warehouse robotics, [DECISION]: whether we accelerate our own integration roadmap.

Key Concepts

The Eight Disciplines

• Independence is the design. The disciplines matter because they fail differently: a press release can lie, but a customs record, a patent filing, and thirty job posts are three separate bureaucracies that would all have to be lying in the same direction.
• Signal → inference chains are the tradecraft: each observable signal maps to a bounded interpretation, labeled per the autonomous-investigation protocol (Fact / Inference / Assumption).
• What this is NOT: espionage. Every source below is published, filed, posted, or publicly observable. See Guardrails in Common Pitfalls.

Application

1. OSINT — The Journalist's Desk

What a good beat reporter knows before the press release drops.

Signal → inference chains:

• [TARGET] exec suddenly posting about a new problem space → positioning pivot incoming (execs test messaging on social 3-6 months before launch)
• Sponsor tier jump at a [MARKET] conference → market entry or doubling down
• Review complaints clustering on one feature → their roadmap pressure point = your battle card ammo
• Analyst briefing requests (visible via analyst posts) → category creation attempt
• Webinar topics shifting → what they're teaching the market is what they're about to sell
• Sudden silence on a product line → sunset in progress
• Prediction-market odds moving on a regulation or milestone that gates [MARKET] → crowd-priced expectations for scenario planning; treat as a leading indicator of consensus, not ground truth, and check liquidity before trusting the number

Feeds: battle cards (objection handling from review mining), positioning (their words vs. customer words gap), win/loss context.

2. FININT — The Forensic Accountant

Follow the money. Companies lie in press releases. They lie less in filings, because lying there is a felony.

Signal → inference chains:

• Risk Factors section changes year-over-year in an annual filing → what genuinely scares them (they must disclose it)
• Segment reporting restructure → strategic reprioritization; follow which segment got promoted
• Earnings call Q&A dodges (analysts ask, execs deflect) → soft spot; probe it in your positioning
• New entity registrations or branches in [GEOGRAPHY] → market entry before any announcement
• Deferred revenue trends → actual sales momentum vs. stated momentum
• Merger filings → market definitions and named competitors, straight from [TARGET]'s own lawyers
• Sovereign fund or state-aid money backing [TARGET] → their runway math just changed; discount-pressure plays won't work
• Prior Information Notices and expressions of interest → tenders telegraphed 3-24 months out

Feeds: battle cards (financial stress = "they'll be desperate at quarter-end" plays), SOM capture rates (their revenue ÷ claimed customer count = deal size reality check, feeding the GEOINT/DEMOINT sizing recipe), account targeting (procurement award patterns).

3. GEOINT/DEMOINT — The Cartographer