Futurologist/Analyst Principles, according to Intel guys (CIA)

• Analysts must have a “duty of curiosity,” and the analytic process must encourage and reward a deep and meaningful understanding of the phenomena under investigation;
• Analysts must be responsible for defining knowledge needs and, therefore, collection requirements; to do this effectively, they must understand
collection capabilities and be sensitive to their limitations;
• Analysts must be active participants in developing integrated strategies for collection and analysis, seeking information instead of being merely
passive recipients;
• The primary purpose of analytic effort is “sensemaking” and understanding, not producing reports; the objective of analysis is to provide information in a meaningful context, not individual factoids;
• The knowledge discovered and the expertise created when an analyst researches a problem is at least as important as “finished intelligence” products that may result;
• Learning is an activity that is valued highly by both analysts and the organization;
• Not all forecasts need be immediately “actionable;” informing decisionmakers and enhancing the quality of the decision process is a critical objective;
• Intuition and creative thinking, including positing hypotheses to be tested, are as important to analysis as evidence-based inductive approaches.

Extract from Cooper, cia.gov: Chapter Four: A Program for Transforming Analysis. "Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis," 2005