Unwelcome surprises in the life of any organization can often be traced to the failure of an assumption that the organization's leadership didn't anticipate or had 'forgotten' it was making. Assumption-based planning (ABP) is a tool for identifying as many as possible of the assumptions underlying the plans of an organization and bringing those assumptions explicitly into the planning process. This book presents a variety of techniques for rooting out those vulnerable, crucial assumptions. The book also presents steps for monitoring all the vulnerable assumptions of a plan, for taking actions to control those vulnerable assumptions where possible, and for preparing the organization for the potential failure of those assumptions where control is not possible. The book provides a variety of examples and practical advice for those interested in carrying out an application of ABP in the fields of business, management, strategic planning, engineering, and in military applications.

This book provides the first multidisciplinary and nonpartisan analysis of how the United States should decide on the legal status of cocaine, heroin and marijuana. It draws on data about the experiences of Western European nations with less punitive drug policies as well as new analyses of America's experience with legal cocaine and heroin a century ago, and of America's efforts to regulate gambling, prostitution, alcohol and cigarettes. It offers projections on the likely consequences of a number of different legalization regimes and shows that the choice about how to regulate drugs involves complicated tradeoffs among goals and conflict among social groups. The book presents a sophisticated discussion of how society should deal with the uncertainty about the consequences of legal change. Finally, it explains, in terms of individual attitudes toward risk, why it is so difficult to accomplish substantial reform of drug policy in America.

The world of intelligence has been completely transformed by the end of the Cold War and the onset of an age of information. Prior to the 1990s, US government intelligence had one principal target, the Soviet Union; a narrow set of 'customers', the political and military officials of the US government; and a limited set of information from the sources they owned, spy satellites and spies. Today, world intelligence has many targets, numerous consumers - not all of whom are American or in the government - and too much information, most of which is not owned by the U.S. government and is of widely varying reliability. In this bold and penetrating study, Gregory Treverton, former Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council and Senate investigator, offers his insider's views on how intelligence gathering and analysis must change. He suggests why intelligence needs to be both contrarian, leaning against the conventional wisdom, and attentive to the longer term, leaning against the growing shorter time horizons of Washington policy makers. He urges that the solving of intelligence puzzles tap expertise outside government - in the academy, think tanks, and Wall Street - to make these parties colleagues and co-consumers of intelligence, befitting the changed role of government from doer to convener, mediator, and coalition-builder.

This rich volume provides a comprehensive look at how policy leads to better health in Asia. Leading RAND thinkers, working in different disciplines, create an all-encompassing framework for students, scholars, and policymakers, clarifying what is known and still needs to be known about how policy and practice lead to better health outcomes in developing countries. Drawing on their broad experience, the authors explore the health effects of macroeconomic development, education, and technology. After making compelling arguments about the need for policymakers to use and demand evidence-based policy, they investigate the epidemiology of persistent infectious diseases and the rapid ascendancy of chronic diseases in the elderly, showing how effectively appropriate clinical medicine addresses illness and promotes well-being. Emphasis is placed on examining equity-improving solutions to ascertain how and where they have helped the poor, women, and other vulnerable populations. The book concludes with a discussion of politics, priorities, the private sector, and what role health departments should play to translate policy objectives into better health.