Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin - Federation of American ...

manders that directly affect decision making and dictate
the successful execution of military operations.” Paragraph
11-40 in FM 3-0 states that “CCIR directly support
the commander’s vision of the battle, commanders
develop them personally,” while paragraph 3-26 in FM
5-0 states clearly that “CCIR belong to the commander
alone.” Paragraph 11-40 in FM 3-0 defines CCIR as “two
types of supporting information requirements: friendly
force information requirements (FFIR) and PIR,” although
Joint Doctrine in Joint Publication (JP) 3-0 (Revision
First Draft) on page III-41 states that for CCIR “the key
subcomponents are priority intelligence requirements,
friendly force information requirements, and essential elements
of friendly information (EEFI).”
Doctrine also addresses keeping the CCIR to a minimum.
JP 3-0 (RFD) states that CCIR “are normally limited
in number.” FM 5-0, in paragraphs 3-25 and 3-26,
states that “in all cases, the fewer the CCIR, the better
the staff can focus its efforts and allocate scarce resources”
and to “keep the number of recommended CCIR to
a minimum.” Paragraph 3-79 of FM 5-0 provides specific
information by stating “the CCIR should be limited to 10
or less at any given time to enhance comprehension.”
CCIRs should also help to determine those items that
are not critical; paragraph 3-29 in FM 5-0 states “CCIR
also help screen the type and amount of information reported
directly to the commander.” Both FM 3-0 (paragraph
11-41) and FM 5-0 (paragraph 3-29) emphasize
focusing on critical information by stating that “CCIR
must be focused enough to generate relevant information.
Unfocused requests, such as “I need to know if the
enemy moves,” may provide data but not much useable
information.” Paragraph 3-79 in FM 3-0 also indicates the
coordination that is inherent in CCIR by helping to “focus
the efforts for his subordinates and staff, assist in the allocation
of resources, and assist staff officers in making
recommendations.”
Priority Intelligence Requirements (PIR)
Field Manual 2-0, Intelligence, provides the doctrinal
basis for determining PIR. As a subset of CCIR, PIR
also belong to the commander. Paragraph 1-32 in FM 2-
0 states that “the commander designates intelligence requirements
tied directly to his decisions as CCIR,” while
paragraph 1-33 states that the PIR do not become CCIR
“until approved by the commander.” Since PIR belong
to the commander, paragraph 1-33 also recognizes that
“the commander may unilaterally designate PIRs.”
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As noted above, paragraph 3-79 of FM 5-0 provides
specific information by stating “the CCIR should be limited
to 10 or less at any given time to enhance comprehension.”
Since PIR are a subset of CCIR, this leaves the “fair
share” of PIR to five or six requirements. One way to keep
this number down is to ensure that PIRs are specifically
associated with a decision to be made by the commander
(FM 2-0, paragraph 1-32).
Identifying non-critical tasks is probably the most difficult
in PIR development. Intelligence requirements (IR)
are developed and the critical requirements, in the eyes
of the commander, are designated as PIR. The tendency
is to develop a detailed list of all of the possible requirements
and then to send these requirements out to the
collectors, who in turn feel that they have been tasked to
“collect on everything.” The key issue is that collectors
need to know when to move on to the critical, and leave
the urgent (or even worse, the available) behind.
Reassessment of PIR should also be continual. The use
of the “latest time information is of value” (LTIOV) helps
to assist this process. PIR and IR should be continually
updated to reflect when requirements have been met or
when the requirement no longer exists.
Summary
These steps should help you focus on the critical tasks
at hand and not dwell on the urgent:
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Commander’s involvement.
Keep the critical lists (METL, CCIR, PIR) to a minimum.
Identify non-critical tasks.
Reassess continually.
Remind constantly.
These steps will not always keep you focused, but
they will go a long way to keep priorities straight. The
Army’s Leadership Manual, FM 22-100, states in paragraphs
5-28 and 5-29 that—
As a leader, you must also set priorities. If you
give your subordinates a list of things to do and
say “They’re all important,” you may be trying to
say something about urgency. But the message
you actually send is “I can’t decide which of these
are most important, so I’ll just lean on you and see
what happens.” Sometimes all courses of action
may appear equally good (or equally bad) and
that any decision will be equally right (or equally
wrong). Situations like that may tempt you to sit
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