What is the LAMP?

The LAMP stands for the Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction.

It is an innovative hybrid methodological approach that assists intelligence analysts in combining the strengths of traditional quantitative analytic methods while overcoming their shortfalls.

LAMP's philosophical basis are as follows:

	The future is not predetermined
	The future is the sum total of all interactions of "free will"
	The future is a spectrum of constantly changing relative probabilities

The LAMP technique is being used in military and intelligence circles to analyze and utilize existing information to make realistic assessments of the possible alternate futures of any given situation. While at American Military University, Nwankama was the first person to work with LAMP inventor, Colonel Jonathan Lockwood, to apply this military conception to business use. Of course, this wasn't the first time the business community would adopt a military model. The business community has always learned from the military for centuries. And, the military has, in turn, learned a lot from the business world.
 

An Advancement in Intelligence Analysis

Intelligence analysts have been plagued by a range of cognitive biases and analytical fallacies that interfere with sound or complete analytical thinking.  When attempting to predict future events, these problems are exacerbated by the fact that most of the analytical instruments power quantitative rundowns more than they provide for qualitative reasoning.

The most widely used analytical instruments have been the Delphi Method, the Scenario Method, the Competing Hypotheses Method and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Each of these instruments have shown to posses significant strengths. However, they have also shown to be deficient in some scenarios. For example, while the Competing Hypotheses Method is known for its thoroughness, an analyst, who is using it as his or her sole instrument, has to contend with the difficulty in understanding the mental and bureaucratic processes of distant adversaries. Furthermore, the Competing Hypotheses Method fails to exploit the theoretical knowledge derived from the study of similar phenomena in other places and other time periods. The principal concern is that if analysts focus mainly on trying to confirm one hypothesis, which they think is probably true, they can easily be led astray by the fact that there is so much evidence to support their point of view. They fail to recognize that most of this evidence may also be consistent with other explanations or conclusions, and that those other alternatives have not been refuted.

Like stated above, LAMP on its part, assumes that the future is the sum total of all exchanges of "free will," both on an individual level and at organizational or international scales. It gives the intelligence analyst a more powerful approach to organizing all available information based on the perceptions of the organizational or national actors. It stratifies and juxtaposes the information and uses it to make relevant predictions as to which alternate future is most likely to occur at a given moment in time. Thus organizational leaders can adduce the various permutations of competitive response to each possible future.

LAMP differs in kind from other analytical techniques in that it is based on determining the relative probability of a series of alternate futures, rather than attempting to determine the quantitative probability of their occurrence.
 

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