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- Re: Watch officers - Please read
- Email-ID 5513222
- Date 2008-02-05 20:06:05
- From davison@stratfor.com
- To hooper@stratfor.com, watchofficer@stratfor.com, orit.gal-nur@stratfor.com
- This is good stuff, Karen. Looking at this it is clear we need to do a
- better job of sending stuff to GV alerts - it makes it to OS (meaning
- monitors are doing their jobs) but not to gvalerts (shame on us). I
- commented on three below, but the point remains that we're missing GV-able
- items. The simplest solution is probably just WOs taking more time to
- become familiar with the client list so that we recognize GV items quickly
- when we're in a hurry.
- I think the breakdown of misses is very helpful. Perhaps as Orit suggested
- we should do this regularly - evaluate the previous shift's work each
- shift? This would be brutal, but it would also be a good exercise (both
- for the person being evaluated and the person doing the evaluating).
- Looking back when there is more time to consider each item, it is easier
- to see my mistakes and as such I'm much less likely to make them again.
- The evaluations would be up for comment by any of the WOs, which would
- help us improve as well. I'll (sheepishly) offer my shift today as the
- first for evaluation if Karen thinks she'll have time to grade me tonight.
- Karen, if you do, go for it - it's nighttime in Orit-land so we probably
- won't hear from her for several more hours. Probably we would only need to
- do this for a week more or less, but it wouldn't have to be a permanent
- fixture as it could become quite time-consuming.
- Here's to more effective WOs!
- Orit Gal-Nur wrote:
- These graphs definitely help us see the layout of our coverage. It's
- also something we can do every two weeks to monitor AOR coverage from
- the OS and Alerts lists. But we also need to consider that some of the
- AORs will have more reppable items, such as the Middle East and Europe.
- Agree on this. Latam is important for mining/lng/oil issues for clients,
- but these don't always make it to reps.
- One side note about the list you compiled below, is it possible that my
- OS box differs from yours? In my thunderbird, one item on the list
- below was forwarded to alerts, and a few others did not show up at all
- in OS (I don't delete anything from OS).
- While a crucial aspect of our job is speed, sometimes it's hard to
- balance this with accuracy. As Karen mentioned, the double and triple
- fact checking is mandatory, but it can slow us in tackling the OS in a
- timely manner. Sometimes during the quick decision making in whether to
- rep or not, I pass a potential rep only to rep it later after reading
- another article and either seeing it a different perspective or with
- just different wording. Agreed on this, too. We should be fast, but we
- should also be accurate. The solution is to get better at both.
- We need to have exercises that allow us to look critically at our work.
- One might be the graph below, done on a consistent basis, to see how our
- sweeping and repping is covered. Another exercise could be to compare
- the time frames from certain days as Karen did, giving us each a chance
- to analyze the lists and eachothers' repping mistakes. This type of
- feedback and learning will spread to all aspects of the job and
- influence all our decision making.
- Thanks Karen, this is a good start.
- Karen Hooper wrote:
- Hi all,
- It is clear that we need more accountability and discussion of the
- principles that drive Watch Officer decision-making at Stratfor. Below
- is my own evaluation of the relationship between the OS list and the
- Alerts list between 5 am cst and 1 pm cst Feb. 4. During that time,
- there were a total of 24 items sent to the alerts list and 20 items
- sent to the gvalerts list. There were only three items sent to the GV
- alerts list between 7 am CST and 8 pm CST yesterday, which is a
- problem.
- The alerts list is closer to where it ought to be, but we may have
- missed a few items that should at the very least be brought to the
- attention of the company. We are also just not as fast as we could be.
- I know that I sometimes get caught up in sweeping, consulting with
- monitors and analysts, and double and triple checking things before i
- rep them, which puts me in a position where I've not forwarded alert
- items the list as fast as I ought to. This is something we all need to
- be acutely aware of -- we have to be reactive, and we must err on the
- side of overreaction.
- At the very bottom of this email is a graph showing our sitrepping
- patterns over the last two weeks. The data only include weekdays, and
- do double-count reps that qualify for more than one AOR. I'm not sure
- what is to be learned from it, except our sitrep coverage of Latin
- America is decidedly less than awesome and our coverage of East Asia
- is spotty. Latin America is pretty internally focused right now, but
- we need at the very least to be picking up the cartel violence. I
- will take the lead on talking to our two monitors who touch on latam
- and putting together some tactical guidance for WOs and Monitors.
- To date, we've been really focused on the monitors, getting them up to
- speed, working out scheduling, etc. It's definitely time that we took
- a look at our own performance, and we need to be thinking about ways
- that we can improve our consistency, speed and thoroughness. Reva has
- pointed out the need to be more careful in our highlighting process,
- which is something she sees easily, first thing in the morning. But we
- are the only ones who can easily go through the OS list -- and we
- should do so in with the aim of keeping each other honest.
- By controlling the flow of information, the watch officers hold the
- family jewels of the company. This will become increasingly true, and
- it's our job to make the right call, every time.
- Below is the result of a sample i took from 5 am CST to 1 pm CST. The
- lists below are of items that probably should have been sent to alerts
- or GValerts:
- GV:
- [OS] TURKEY/ENERGY - Ankara delays natural gas tender for March 14
- [OS] ENERGY - Trans-Black Sea pipeline studies under way
- [OS] UAE/IB - Abu Dhabi plans investment of $280 bln
- [OS] KUWAIT/KSA/ENERGY - Kuwait, Saudi to increase Neutral Zone oil
- capacity
- [OS] LITHUANIA/POLAND/SWEDEN/ENERGY - Seimas passes nuclear bill I may
- be overlooking something, but I don't see that this one should have
- been GVd.
- [OS] NORWAY/ENERGY - Turbine fire shuts down 20, 000 barrel per day
- Njord A oil platform off Norwa
- [OS] RUSSIA/SOMALIA/CT - Pirates seize Russians, British man off
- Somalia (More details) A similar article was sent to gvalerts prior to
- this one. But it raised a question in my mind - what kinds of updates
- do we need for GV items? So I asked Joe. He says there's no need to
- update a story unless it changes the fundamentals or a briefer
- contacts the WO to say it is important enough to a client to warrant
- tracking more minute changes.
- [OS] ANGOLA/SOUTH AFRICA/IB - Angolan mining potential in focus in
- South Africa I don't think this one needed to be sent to GValerts. The
- only new information is that a presentation is being given.
- S2 - NIGERIA/CT - Rebels claim Nigerian oil delta attack
- [OS] BRAZIL/TURKEY/ENERGY/IB - Petrobras, Turkiye Petrolleri Find
- Black Sea Oil, Referans Says
- [OS] CHINA/IB - Copper Rises as Costs May Curb China's Output; Nickel
- Declines
- [OS] SERBIA/US/PP/IB - Serbia, US Steel sign environmental protection
- deal
- [OS] COLOMBIA/ENERGY - Colombia To Auction Rights To Seek Oil In 151
- Blocks In 2008
- [OS] FRANCE/VENEZUELA/ENERGY/IB - Total Signs 2 Heavy Oil Study Deals
- With PDVSA
- [OS] IB - Airbus Completes First Civil Aircraft Test Flight With
- Alternative Fuel
- Alerts:
- [OS] IRAQ/IRAN/ENERGY - Baghdad protests against Iranian violations of
- Iraqi oilfields
- [OS] JAPAN/CHINA/IB - Japan sends mission to China over food poisoning
- incidents
- [OS] CHAD/CT/UN - EU Chad mission suspended but will go ahead-Solana
- [OS] US/MIL/CT- U.S. Citizen in Singapore Accused of Selling Military
- Hardware to Iran [It was too old to rep, but it should have been sent
- out]
- [OS] IB - White House Budget Request
- [OS] FRANCE/VENEZUELA/ENERGY/IB - Total Signs 2 Heavy Oil Study Deals
- With PDVSA
- [OS] ITALY - Berlusconi Rejects Government as Early Election Looms
- Other issues:
- [OS] EGYPT/GAZA/CT - Palestinian gunfire wounds 2 Egyptian policemen
- [this was sent to the OS list three times, it was repped over an hour
- after it was first sent to the list]
- [OS] COLOMBIA/CT - Colombians in anti-Farc protests [i repped this
- later, when the numbers were made clear (half a million protesters),
- but it was still pretty impt when sent out at the beginning of the
- day]
- [OS] SPAIN/CT - Spanish police arrest Basque separatists [This was
- repped, but not until an hour after it was sent to the OS list]
- INDIA/MALAYSIA - India, Malaysia seeking ways to join hands in
- fighting terror [this should have been resent to the OS list with a
- CT tag]
- Sitrepping by AOR over the past two weeks:
- Feb. Feb. Jan. Jan. Jan. Jan. Jan. Jan. Jan. Jan. Jan.
- 4 1 31 30 29 28 25 24 23 22 21
- East 3 6 5 7 3 16 4 3 8 6 8
- Asia
- Middle 15 15 7 8 8 17 15 11 17 14 12
- East
- Latin 3 4 3 3 3 2 2 1 3 4 6
- America
- South 6 9 11 4 5 6 11 6 11 10 5
- Asia
- Africa 6 8 6 2 5 1 5 1 7 3 6
- Europe 6 7 4 8 6 3 16 9 7 9 8
- FSU 3 5 6 7 6 9 9 11 7 6 4
- --
- Orit Gal-Nur
- Watch Officer
- Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
- orit.gal-nur@stratfor.com
- --
- Thomas Davison
- Watch Officer
- Stratfor
- (512) 366-0196
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