Alternative Analysis

Watermark's alternative analysis practice is dedicated to helping organizations escape predictable and potentially harmful patterns of thought. We emphasize intuitive, visual modeling techniques that help merge the experience, perspective, and know-how of our staff, consultants, and clients.

Alternative analysis represents a class of approaches, tools, and techniques designed to help “debias” thinking, enhance decision making, and avoid surprise. The successful use of alternative analysis can help a decision maker

• reframe a complex problem;
• overturn faulty assumptions;
•  identify overlooked risks;
•  identify new strategies; and
•  anticipate, avoid and even inflict surprise.

We take a “toolkit” approach to alternative analysis. While some analysts favor one tool at the expense of others, we prefer to tailor the approach to the problem. Our suite of approaches includes:

• red teaming,
•  war gaming,
•  analysis of competing hypotheses,
• attack modeling,
• scenario planning,
• dialogue mapping,
• hypergame perception modeling, and
• strategy analysis.

Alternative analysis can support and enhance a variety of traditional decision making processes:

• intelligence analysis,
• risk management,
• competitive intelligence,
• defense and security analysis,
• business continuity planning, and
• strategy development (business and government).

Alternative analysis is particularly important when the margin of allowable error is slim and the cost of failure is high. When faced with tighter budgets and greater challenges, the prudent decision maker will tend to opt for more, not less, alternative analysis.