The "OODA loop" is the cycle of "Observe, Orient, Decide, Act" developed by military strategist John Boyd. This page is our notes about the OODA loop, the book "Science, Strategy and War", and related ideas.
Contents:
- OODA loop: observe, orient, decide, act
- OODA loop: more than meets the eye
- OODA loop: the strategic theory
- OODA loop for business
- Three spheres: physical, mental, moral
- Process to evolve
- Quotations by Boyd
- Traditional worldview vs. emerging worldview
- Planning paradigm as defined by the new sciences
- Applying Boyd's principles to business organizations
- EBFAS organizational climate
- Resources
The OODA loop is the cycle of observe, orient, decide, act. The approach explains how agility can overcome raw power.
Observe: gather information about the environment, the adversary, the decision-maker, the context, etc.
Orient: evaluate the threat, make logical connections, decide on focus, and get inside the mind of the adversary so strategies can be oriented against the adversary's capabilties.
Decide: choose a course of action to pursue, balancing the need to make rapid decisions and the need to make careful choices.
Act: Execute quickly and immediately, then return to the Observe step, in order to analyze the changes, including the adversary's reactions.
The OODA loop states that decision-making occurs in a recurring cycle of observe–orient–decide–act. An entity (whether an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby "get inside" the opponent's decision cycle and thus gain advantages.
The OODA loop explains how to direct one's energies to defeat an adversary and survive. Boyd emphasized that "the loop" is actually a set of interacting loops that are to be kept in continuous operation during combat. Boyd also indicated that the phase of the battle has an important bearing on the ideal allocation of one's energies.
Boyd's views on the OODA loop are much deeper, richer, and more comprehensive than the common interpretation of the "rapid OODA loop" idea. Boyd's ideas feature in the literature on Network Centric Warfare, a key element of the US and NATO’s so-called ‘military transformation’ programmes, as well as in the debate on Fourth Generation Warfare.
In any conflict all combatants go through repeated cycles of observation, orientation, decision, action. The potentially victorious combatant is the one with the cycles which are consistently quicker than his opponent, including the time required to transition from one cycle to the next.
In order to generate the tempo of operations that we desire, and to best cope with the uncertainty, disorder, and fluidity of combat, command and control must be decentralized.
The aim of a strategist is not so much to seek battle as to seek a strategic situation so advantageous that if it does not of itself product the decision, its continuation by a battle is sure to achive this.
The same OODA loop operates in a competitive business landscape, and the same logic applies.
Decision makers gather information (observe).
Decision makers then form hypotheses about markets, customers, products, activities, and the intentions of competitors (orient).
Decision makers then make decisions, and act on them.
The cycle is repeated continuously, and favors business agility over raw power. The aggressive and conscious application of the process gives a business advantage over a competitor who is merely reacting to conditions as they occur or has poor awareness of the situation.
The OODA loop of military strategy is sometimes compared to the DMAIC cycle of project management, and also to the PDCA spiral of iterative planning.
OODA: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act: a framework for how to direct one's energies to defeat an adversary. The OODA loop is a core tool used for U.S. military planning. OODA can also be useful for business strategy planing.
DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control: a data-driven improvement cycle for optimizing and stabilizing business processes and designs. The DMAIC improvement cycle is the core tool used to drive Six Sigma projects. DMAIC can be used as the framework for other improvement applications.
PDCA: Plan, Do, Check, Act: a data-driven improvement cycle for iterating towards an improved system, implemented in spirals of increasing knowledge of the system that converge on the ultimate goal, each cycle closer than the previous. It is also known as the Deming circle/cycle/wheel, the Shewhart cycle, the control circle/cycle, or plan–do–study–act (PDSA).
| OODA | DMAIC | PDCA | |
| Identify the problem | Observe | Define | Plan |
| Measure the problem | Measure | ||
| Analyze the problem | Orient | Analyze | |
| Create action plans | Decide | Improve | |
| Execute action plans | Act | Do | |
| Verify the results | Observe | Control | Check a.k.a. Study |
| Measure the results | |||
| Analyze the results | Orient | ||
| Create improvement plans | Decide | Act a.k.a. Adjust | |
| Execute improvement plans | Act |
Root causes of such issues are investigated, found, and eliminated by modifying the process. Risk is re-evaluated.
Boyd used a concept of three spheres of war: the physical, the mental, and the moral dimension, using this idea of to structure his argument and develop three modes of conflict.
Respectively, these spheres dealt with destruction of the enemy's physical strength (fighting power), disorganization of his mental processes (thinking power), and disintigraion of his moral will to resist (staying power). The forces operating within these spheres did so in synergistic ways, not isolated ways.
Boyd emphasized speed, tempo, variety, surprise, trust, initiative, movement, and his view that the moral and mental dimensions came before technology, superiority in numbers, and massed firepower.
An important feature of Boyd's book of air maneuvers was that Boyd did not advocate one maneuver over another, but presented the options available to the pilot and his opponent in relation to each other. He wanted to show people a variety of moves and countermoves, and the logic of its dynamic.
His aim was not to convince people about the validity of this or that doctrine, but instead to create among his audience a way of thinking, a thought process.
The process not only creates the output but also represents the key to evolve the tactics, strategies, goals, unifying themes, etc. that permit us to actively shape and adapt to the unfolding world.
The OODA loop is a precursor of what was later described as "Network Centric Warfare" both in its limited meaning as a Command, Control, Computer, Communications, Intelligence, Reconnaissance, and Surveillance (C4ISR) system and its broader strategic implications as a strategic concept.
Boyd emphasized the importance of communications as the foundation of the loop and information management as essential to the Orientation portion of the loop. The OODA strategic applications were related to creating greater flexibility by moving decision making down to the lowest level while creating situational awareness on the highest level.
"Strategy is a mental tapestry of changing intentions for harmonizing and focusing our efforts as a basis for realizing some aim or purpose in an unfolding and often unforeseen world of many bewildering events and many contending interests."
"The key idea is to emphasize implicit over explicit in order to gain a favorable mismatch in friction and time (i.e, ours lower than any adversary’s) for superiority in shaping and adapting to circumstances."
"Arrange the setting and circumstances so that leaders and subordinates alike are given the opportunity to continuously interact with the external world, and with each other, in order to more quickly make many-sided implicit cross-referencing projections, empathies, correlations, and rejections as well as create the similar images or impressions, hence a similar implicit orientation, needed to form an organic whole."
| Traditional worldview | Emerging worldview |
|---|---|
| Reductionism | Holism |
| Linear causality | Mutual causality |
| Objective reality | Perspective reality |
| Determinism | Indeterminism |
| Survival of the fittest | Adaptive self-organization |
| Focus on discrete entities | Focus on relationships between entities |
| Linear relationships | Non-linear relationships |
| Newtonian physics perspectives | Quantum physics perspectives |
| World is predictable | World is novel and probabilistic |
| Modern | Postmodern |
| Focus on hierarchy | Focus on heterarchy (within levels) |
| Prediction | Understanding |
| Based on 19th-century physics | Based on biology |
| Equilibrium, stability, deterministic dynamics | Structure, pattern, self-organization, life cycles |
| Focus on averages | Focus on variation |
| From | To |
|---|---|
| Linear | Non-linear |
| Static, cause-effect view of individual factors | Dynamic, constantly changing field of interactions |
| Microscopic, local | Wide angle, global |
| Separateness | Relatedness |
| Marketplace | Environment |
| Reductionist | Non-reductionist |
| Component thinking | Seeing and thinking in wholes |
| Time cards, task analysis | Complex Adaptive Systems |
| Problem solving | Butterfly Effect, system feedback |
| Brainstorming | Self-organization, adaptation |
| Polarization | Environmental scanning plus mapping |
| Structure creates process | Underlying processes and interactions of a system's variables create self-organizing patterns, shapes and structures |
| Pays attention to policies and procedures that are usually fixed and inflexible | Pays attention to initial conditions, perking information, emerging events, and strange attractors |
| Standing committees | Ad hoc working groups, networks |
| Politics | Learning |
| Planning as discrete event | Planning as continuous process |
| Planning by elite specialist group | Planning requires whole system input |
| Implementation of plan | Implementation flexible and constantly evolving in response to emerging conditions |
| Forecasting through data analysis | Foresight through synthesis |
| Quantitative | Qualitative |
| Controlling, stabilizing or managing change | Responding to and influencing change as it emerges |
| Dinosaur behavior | Entrepreneurial behavior |
| Change as threat | Change as opportunity |
| Leads to stagnation and extinction | Leads to renewal and growth |
Source: Boyd and Beyond 2014
Characteristics of maneuver-based organizations:
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Rapidity of decision-making
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Rapidity of action
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Decentralized decision-making
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Significant license to execute
Features of maneuver-based organizations:
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Unit cohesion and common values
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High skill levels and training
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New or adaptive reuse of technology
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Tradecraft
Thought experiment:
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Break down complex systems into "building blocks". Adaptively reuse and reconfigure into new systems. Be quicker and more effective at coming up with new solutions.
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Look at things from a number of perspectives. Utilize the tools of analysis and synthesis. Come up with novel approaches that integrate seemingly-unrelated concepts or elements.
Finding unique solutions via synthesis:
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Synthesis is what happens when you are forced to draw a conclusion from an incomplete data set.
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You have to think and plan in ways that are different. You have to adapt. You have to try things that are not “normal”.
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Develop a non-standard mindset, and keep it churning.
Trust among teammates:
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Trust is an essential trait among teammates.
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Trust is a product of confidence and familiarity.
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Confidence among colleagues results from demonstrated professional skill.
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Familiarity results from shared experience and a common professional philosophy.
Strategy and chaos:
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The strategic roadmap should produce operations and tactics sufficient to design an organization which will truly thrive on chaos.
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The organization must be built to respond in an elegant manner to constant environmental changes.
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The organization must be be designed in a manner which will allow it to take as much advantage of these changes as possible, quickly, while losing as little energy as possible.
"EBFAS" is Boyd’s German acronym from the elements of his organizational climate: Einheit (oneness), Behendigkeit (agility), Fingerspitzengefühl (fingertip feeling), Auftragstaktik (task tactic), Schwerpunkt (main point).
Einheit: Literally "one-ness" or "unity". Can mean "a military detachment or unit". A common outlook possessed by "a body of officers" represents a unifying theme that can be used to simultaneously encourage subordinate initiative yet realize superior intent. TODO: Create Wikipedia entry.
Behendigkeit: Literally "agility", nimbleness, quickness, swiftness. Behendigkeit, the way Boyd used it, is the ability to break out of longstanding patterns, even if they have been successful.
Fingerspitzengefühl: literally "fingertip feeling". Means intuitive flair or instinct, which has been adopted by the English language as a loanword. It describes a great situational awareness, and the ability to respond most appropriately and tactfully. It can also be applied to diplomats, bearers of bad news, sports players, or to describe a superior ability to respond to an escalated situation.
Auftragstaktik: a form of military tactics where the emphasis is on the outcome of a mission rather than the specific means of achieving it. Mission-type tactics have been a central component of military tactics since the 19th century. The term Auftragstaktik was coined by opponents of the development of mission-type tactics. Opponents of the implementation of mission-type tactics were called Normaltaktiker.
Schwerpunkt: literally "hard, difficult, heavy" point. Usually: center of gravity, focus of main effort, focus and direction. heuristic device (conceptual tool or thinking formula) to make decisions from tactics to strategy about priority. None of these forms is sufficient to describe the universal importance of the term and the concept of Schwerpunktprinzip. Every unit in the army, from the company to the supreme command, decided on a Schwerpunkt through schwerpunktbildung, as did the support services, which meant that commanders always knew what was most important and why.
A Discourse on Winning and Losing - By John R. Boyd.
Abstract: To flourish and grow in a many-sided, uncertain and ever-changing world that surrounds us, suggests that we have to make intuitive within ourselves those many practices we need to meet the exigencies of that world. The contents, hence the five sections that comprise this Discourse, unfold observations and ideas that contribute toward achieving or thwarting such an aim or purpose. Specifically:
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"Patterns of Conflict" represents a compendium of idea and actions for winning and losing in a highly competitive world;
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"Organic Design for Command and Control" surfaces the implicit arrangements that permit cooperation in complex, competitive, fast moving situations;
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"The Strategic Game of ? and ?" emphasizes the mental twists and turns we undertake to surface schemes or designs for realizing our aims or purposes;
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“Destruction and Creation” lays out in abstract but graphic fashion the ways by which we evolve mental concepts to comprehend and cope with our environment;
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“Revelation” makes visible the metaphorical message that flows from this Discourse
John Boyd Compendium; by Project on Government Oversight
A Discourse on Winning and Losing; by John Boyd
