Political Risk Academy
An Online Four-Week course in POlitical Risk Analysis
Learn political risk analysis best practices (and network with your peers) from the comfort of your computer
Political risk analysis is a skill in its own right, yet it is often only learned through years of experience or self-directed reading and experimenting. This is a problem if you want to quickly improve your analysis and to stay on top of the field.
Two Lanterns teaches political risk analysis to organizations in person. As COVID-19 forces us all remote, it is now starting an online course to teach the same. As a benefit of being online, these courses are now no longer restricted to those working in a single office and are open to individuals around the world.
Rather than relying on a single method or searching for a single answer, the Two Lanterns approach focuses on building a superior political risk process to deliver more reliable forecasts on a consistent basis.
This methodology is based on industry experience, academic literature, and constant research on current best practices.
Courses will be filled on a first-come-first-serve basis and are offered throughout the year. Courses are currently offered at an introductory price of $249.
Sign up in the form below to express interest.
What you get:
Learn the latest techniques for political risk grounded in academic research in 12 hours of class
Discussions with practitioners of political risk about where the field is heading
Networking opportunities within your cohort and with alumni of the course
3 months’ complimentary access to the Two Lanterns Platform
What’s in the courses?
The Two Lanterns Political Risk Academy is a four-week online course for up to 30 attendees. We restrict the audience to this number to ensure that it remains an interactive class, rather than just a webinar, and to allow meaningful networking to happen among the cohort.
This course teaches both fundamental and advanced methods for political risk using real-world examples. They enable an analyst or decision-maker to be better equipped to thrive in an uncertain global environment. With these processes and methodologies, when political issues must be addressed, they are done so in the most rigorous manner possible.
Each course consists of four weekly three-hour sessions that conclude with a group exercise producing a political risk product.
1. Fundamentals and Biases
The first session introduces the cohort to each other and covers the basics of the industry and practice. Rather than simply a gut forecast of what might happen in the world of politics, political risk should be a high-frequency, constantly evolving assessment of plausible futures.
This session also addresses the ten most common cognitive biases that can undermine our coverage and concludes with a matrix of pitfalls for an issue.
2. Scenario Planning
The future is highly uncertain. Our assumptions about what the world will be like in 5 years - or even 5 months - are shaky to the point of useless.
Luckily, scenario planning has been found to help in these situations. Based on the work of Shell, RAND, and the Intelligence Community, this approach encourages a blend of internal and external knowledge to stress-test plans and spark conversations within teams.
3. Monitor Construction
Political risk is not something that goes away after a report is completed. It is an ongoing concern that an organization will need to track week after week and month after month.
This session focuses on the necessary skills and methods to track evolving risks to avoid the twin problems of the Boiled Frog and Chicken Little.
This session utilizes the monitors on the Two Lanterns Platform. All students are provided with three months of free access to the Platform after the completion of the course to continue using the monitors they built.
4. Workflow Streamlining
One of the important aspects of political risk is that the job is never done.
Risks are always present in the global environment and the end of one report usually suggests directions for further research. Yet the time and resource crunch is always present for analysts.
With well-constructed checklists and other guides to ensure that regular qualitative assessments can be performed as quickly as possible, while minimizing any trade-offs on accuracy or creativity.
This session ends with the construction of a manual to accelerate daily analysis.