The Frame Bureau

1. Scoping

We work together to identify the desk the group would run, who the trainees are, and the problem that needs solving. Out of that we choose the country desk and the questions it should answer.

2. Design

Four to six weeks working with you and your faculty to write the pilot syllabus together, so the case material fits your trainees, your priorities and the way we work.

3. Pilot group

We start with modules one to three, with clear markers, deliverables and measures for every trainee, so we can see that the process is working for them rather than assume it.

4. Full programme

All five modules. The written procedures and the desk itself are built over the course of it, because the whole thing is designed to be handed over.

Module 1 · Finding and checking

masterclass An investigative editor on how to find people who know things, and how to tell when you are the one being used.

desk practice The group builds the evidence file behind one live question on the desk.

you hand in An evidence file where every claim names its source and the second source that stands it up.

Module 2 · Who holds power

masterclass A former finance minister and central bank director on how decisions are really taken inside a state.

desk practice Map the people around one decision. What each wants, what each fears, and what each can actually do.

you hand in An actor map naming the three relationships most likely to break first, and what would break them.

Module 3 · Turning it into data

masterclass How a year of reporting becomes dated, counted events, and what the counting cannot tell you.

desk practice Classify a week of live material against the desk’s own rules, and argue the ones you think are wrong.

you hand in A coded set of events, plus a written note on where the rules failed and why.

Module 4 · The live desk

masterclass Running all six steps at the pace real events arrive.

desk practice The group holds the desk for a fortnight. Read, classify and re-weigh the desk’s own questions every day.

you hand in The desk’s odds at the end of the fortnight, with the reasoning behind every change.

Module 5 · Writing the call

masterclass Briefing a minister or a board. What belongs in the first paragraph, and what has to be left out.

desk practice Write the call with a probability and a date, and state in advance what would prove it wrong.

you hand in A brief that reality settles a few weeks later. That verdict is your mark.

Luis Raul Matos Azocar

Former Minister of Finance, Central Bank Director and Minister of Planning in Venezuela, where he built the government situation room in the 1990s. Two decades directing a master’s programme in political communication and governance at George Washington University. He teaches how decisions are actually taken inside a state.

Robert Shaw

Twenty years across investigative journalism, risk intelligence and emerging markets, and the founder of EchoFrame. He teaches sourcing and verification, including how to reach the hyperlocal and paywalled reporting that standard monitoring never sees.

Dr Juan Manuel Trak

PhD in political processes with a master’s in business analytics, and Chief Product Officer at EchoFrame. Advisory work for UNDP, International IDEA and NDI. He teaches how social theory becomes indicators a system can score.

Dr Jean-Christophe Loubier

Twenty years in decision support and scenario modelling for complex systems, with a standing insistence that an output has to be explainable. He teaches why a model nobody can explain will not survive its first serious challenge.

Adam Dempsey

Two decades in strategic communications and geopolitical risk across the Gulf and Europe, and Director of Business Development at EchoFrame. He teaches how an assessment survives contact with the people who act on it.

Dr Simon King

Twenty years of operational political risk across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, integrating open sources with human networks. He teaches how to read the way the people involved behave before it becomes an event.

The institute trains senior officials and wanted analytical capability held internally rather than bought in from consultants each time a question arose.

Can our own people run a live intelligence desk, and what would it take?

The gap was not analytical talent. It was that the judgements a good analyst makes by instinct were nowhere written down, so they could not be taught, checked or run at scale. The trainees build the desk and the written procedures as they go.

The institute keeps the desk, the procedures and the training process. The measure of success is that a group can staff its own analytical desk within two to four weeks of finishing, without us in the room.