About Us

Pherson Associates, LLC teaches and guides analysts in the effective application of strategies, tools, and techniques to make sense of the present and anticipate the future. Our cadre of experts includes recently retired senior managers and analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of State, Defense Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the private sector committed to developing clear-thinking analysts who will help our nation foresee and prepare to meet new threats and challenges.

Learn more about Pherson Associates

from Inside Business with Fred Thompson.

Producing Better Analysis: Informed by the Past, Focused on the Future

Our instructors' experience on the front lines of national security sensitizes them to the differences today's analysts face in identifying threats, interpreting conflicting data, and clarifying options for homeland security decision makers. Rather than teach intelligence analysis as in the past, they expose students to analytic strategies shaped by today's demands, realities, and technologies. These highly regarded senior colleagues believe the future of our national security depends on building resilient and collaborative analytic capabilities that cross disciplines, organizations, and jurisdictions.

Our associates are some of the best writers, briefers, and thinkers in the Government. They engage students in active learning and practical exercises and teach them constructive ways to implement this knowledge in the workplace. The instructors' value is enhanced by their ongoing consultations with the US Government, instruction at well-known universities, and advising of state and local homeland security centers.

Well Regarded Curricula

Our curricula have been highly evaluated by beginning analysts as well as seasoned senior intelligence producers and managers. We adapt the topics and exercises to meet students' needs and work with clients to design exercises that target specific problems. Our analytic tools and techniques provide useful fora to foster collaboration, generate new ideas and common frameworks, and identify actions to solve hard problems. We provide tools to identify and overcome mind-sets, stimulate creative thinking, and instill rigor in the analytic process. Pherson Associates instructs, facilitates, and guides analysts in a broad range of interactive activities including structured training courses; facilitated workshops that apply key analytic techniques such as a Key Assumptions Check, Analysis of Competing Hypotheses, or Multiple Scenarios Generation; seminars and conferences designed to solve problems, discover insights, or build teams; action-oriented studies and reports; and on-site consultations.

Culturally Attuned

The Pherson Associates' staff has a wide range of international experience - from the Middle East to East Asia to Europe. We have lived, worked, and taught in dozens of countries and are adept at customizing our classes and other services to reflect the client's cultural milieu. We have developed material for international audiences and are comfortable communicating across many cultures in a wide variety of languages including Russian, Chinese, Greek, Romanian, German, French, Spanish, Farsi, and Arabic.

More detailed information on the services and capabilities of Pherson Associates can be found here.