6 ms·

OODA loop is often hyped, but really it is just a description of how humans (and animals) behave in almost any situation. "Look, Think, Decide, Act" in other wo

by hedgew 6y ago

OODA loop is often hyped, but really it is just a description of how humans (and animals) behave in almost any situation. "Look, Think, Decide, Act" in other words. It's not valuable in the sense that you can "practice" or "apply" the loop and perform better. Your behavior already follows this model. Its real value probably came from presenting this common decision making process in a way that appealed to upper military management, which made it easier to develop processes and practices that help decision makers (like pilots) in critical situations.

g_sch 6y ago
The reason the OODA loop was useful, though, is because it took a decision-making process that was normally used by individuals and brought it into organizations. It seeks to answer the question: how do we minimize the overhead cost of making decisions in large organizations without compromising on effectiveness? Given that it originated in the military, the lack of a "wait for orders" step is what's notable.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
1123581321 6y ago
The loop is not (usually) executed sequentially, in nature or in human tactical training. Boyd’s thinking was useful in the military bureaucracy to make the right types of aircraft that would support high maneuverability and rapid decision making. Training to excel in use of new aircraft only came naturally to the pilots to a certain point, and this is still true today. However, it’s true that OODA skills like rapid re-orientation are often best taught to humans by putting the right kind of pressure on them so that their instincts will be honed in a useful way, although mastery requires thinking about and tuning those instincts as well.
arethuza 6y ago
Pretty sure I have met people who tended to do "Act, Look, Think, Decide" in that order! i.e. Do something daft, look at what they had done, think about the consequences and decide whether to admit to the mistake ;-)
- fluidcruft 6y ago
  It's the same when run as a loop though, so it's just a difference in opinion about where the loop started. ...), (Act, Look, Think, Decide, (Act, Look, Think, Decide), (Act, Look, ... ..., Act), (Look, Think, Decide, Act), (Look, Think, Decide, Act), (Look, ...
- JshWright 6y ago
  As long as you keep the "act" small in scale (and you continue to loop through the steps), this is probably the best approach in most circumstances. If for no other reason than is break you out of the initial tendency many people have to freeze when confronted with crisis.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    I'm sure I've been told by someone who had been trained as an officer in the British army that they were very much trained to have a "Bias for Action" - i.e. the worst thing you could in most situations would be to get caught in their version of "analysis paralysis". Of course, he told me this with impeccable self deprecating humour (presumably also part of their training) - so difficult to tell how serious he was being.
    - JshWright 6y ago
      Yeah, my take also comes from prior training (as a firefighter/paramedic). Start moving towards/away from the problem (which direction depends on your own personal defaults and risk tolerance). You don't need to figure everything out before you start moving.
    - touisteur 6y ago
      I heard the same from an ebola containment expert. Can't locate the interview now but it felt borne from hard-earned experience.
chrisseaton 6y ago
People were doing manoeuvre warfare for thousands of years before Boyd, as well. People think nobody had any idea what they were doing before OODA. And don't get me started on people who think manoeuvre warfare was invented by Ender...
kirse 6y ago
That's a bit underselling it, like saying "E = mc^2 is just a description of how light behaves" and sweeping it under the rug as if the explanatory model provides no additional benefit. The value comes from the ability to consciously influence the various stages of the process instead of it simply being subconsciously driven. In fact, you can practice and apply the stages of the loop better - for example, making a list of questions you'd like to ask yourself during the observe phase in a given scenario. You practice consciously asking yourself observation questions enough and in time the brain integrates that into the subconscious processing loop.
- Y_Y 6y ago
  It not a description of how light behaves at all.
WJW 6y ago
While I agree that the OODA loop is most often presented as a (fairly obvious) decision model for individuals, the model itself is not the big idea. Rather, the primary value comes from the realization that in a competition (like war, or business, or sports, etc) between two or more individuals/groups the ones who can "cycle through" the OODA loop will be able to adapt faster and often gain the upper hand through superior decision making. In the context of the military, there are ways of reorganizing your command structure to enable faster OODA loop cycling. For example, a major driver of the "slowness" of traditional armies is their centralization of command. Propagating new intel up the chain and orders down to the troops takes a lot of time, especially when intermediate nodes keep dropping out. If you can delegate your decision making to the lowest possible level, this will make the average decision slightly worse, but because you can make each decision much faster you can still come out ahead overall. This is one of the ways an organization can "practice" the loop. (And coincidentally, one that growing startups often struggle with since it is very difficult to transition from direct command to delegation based command) I also don't agree with your claim that you can't "practice" the loop on an individual level. Anyone who suffers from indecision in the face of uncertainty and overwhelming options ("analysis paralysis") should know that it is something you get better at over time, especially when you need to be doing it under time pressure. Source: Was a Navy officer for 14 years, we had tons of discussions of "how to get into the opponents loop" during briefings and trainings. Note that in the military it is sometimes possible to actively slow down the opponents OODA looping, something that is probably illegal for most civilian companies. (Though see https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ for a legal example)
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  Great point and part of why I've increasingly developed a preference for Kanban and optimizing cycle time at organizations I've worked at. There's a great blog post [1] that popped up in my network which I think does an excellent job of describing this in a very visual, tangible manner. [1] https://erikbern.com/2019/10/16/buffet-lines-are-terrible.html https://erikbern.com/2019/10/16/buffet-lines-are-terrible.ht...
- EthanHeilman 6y ago
elethon 6y ago
It might be overhyped but that doesn't mean there's nothing valuable in the model. While it might describe how the world works, it is also intended to bring your attention to specifics. For instance, maybe you don't do a great job of actually looking (observing as it's called in the model). If you have this model in your head to refer to, you can stop and think "Wait, I need to make sure that I'm considering all the relevant evidence before acting".
gpm 6y ago
I've never been in an organization that needs this sort of model, but my assumption was it was more about what not to do. Don't second guess yourself endlessly, don't panic, don't reminisce about what could have been, don't blindly repeat your last action, don't freeze, etc. In high stress situations people tend to do dumb things, this sounds to me like an attempt to say "don't do that" without saying the word "don't" or specifying the "that".
- beckingz 6y ago
  Sufficiently large organizations easily panic, second guess themselves, etc. Formalizing the decision making process helps get to the point where you can make a decision. In risk averse organizations, this is extremely valuable.
sjwest 6y ago
I agree that the OODA theory is in line with what any behaviour is. I think the real value of it is with its implementation : "Fail fast, fail often" and agile mentality is born from this original theory, and I think these tactics are invaluable for rapid progress. I think this also makes OODA an effective strategy: being able to conceptualise the whole system/problem in a holistic manner, and being able to quickly ascertain what are the important variables/factors, and therefore what you need do to to achieve the greatest impact/effect in line with your goal. This is, in my view, the whole point of OODA, and this takes a shrewd intellect and a lot of practice to get good at! This kind of goes beyond the basic OODA acronym, but consideration of approach through each of the OODA stages is where the value of this theory resides. Indeed I try to implement this approach in my work as a scientist each day!

by hedgew 6y ago

g_sch 6y ago

The reason the OODA loop was useful, though, is because it took a decision-making process that was normally used by individuals and brought it into organizations. It seeks to answer the question: how do we minimize the overhead cost of making decisions in large organizations without compromising on effectiveness? Given that it originated in the military, the lack of a "wait for orders" step is what's notable.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

1123581321 6y ago

The loop is not (usually) executed sequentially, in nature or in human tactical training. Boyd’s thinking was useful in the military bureaucracy to make the right types of aircraft that would support high maneuverability and rapid decision making. Training to excel in use of new aircraft only came naturally to the pilots to a certain point, and this is still true today. However, it’s true that OODA skills like rapid re-orientation are often best taught to humans by putting the right kind of pressure on them so that their instincts will be honed in a useful way, although mastery requires thinking about and tuning those instincts as well.

arethuza 6y ago

Pretty sure I have met people who tended to do "Act, Look, Think, Decide" in that order! i.e. Do something daft, look at what they had done, think about the consequences and decide whether to admit to the mistake ;-)

fluidcruft 6y ago
It's the same when run as a loop though, so it's just a difference in opinion about where the loop started. ...), (Act, Look, Think, Decide, (Act, Look, Think, Decide), (Act, Look, ... ..., Act), (Look, Think, Decide, Act), (Look, Think, Decide, Act), (Look, ...
JshWright 6y ago
As long as you keep the "act" small in scale (and you continue to loop through the steps), this is probably the best approach in most circumstances. If for no other reason than is break you out of the initial tendency many people have to freeze when confronted with crisis.
- arethuza 6y ago
  I'm sure I've been told by someone who had been trained as an officer in the British army that they were very much trained to have a "Bias for Action" - i.e. the worst thing you could in most situations would be to get caught in their version of "analysis paralysis". Of course, he told me this with impeccable self deprecating humour (presumably also part of their training) - so difficult to tell how serious he was being.
  - JshWright 6y ago
    Yeah, my take also comes from prior training (as a firefighter/paramedic). Start moving towards/away from the problem (which direction depends on your own personal defaults and risk tolerance). You don't need to figure everything out before you start moving.
  - touisteur 6y ago
    I heard the same from an ebola containment expert. Can't locate the interview now but it felt borne from hard-earned experience.

chrisseaton 6y ago

People were doing manoeuvre warfare for thousands of years before Boyd, as well. People think nobody had any idea what they were doing before OODA. And don't get me started on people who think manoeuvre warfare was invented by Ender...

kirse 6y ago

That's a bit underselling it, like saying "E = mc^2 is just a description of how light behaves" and sweeping it under the rug as if the explanatory model provides no additional benefit. The value comes from the ability to consciously influence the various stages of the process instead of it simply being subconsciously driven. In fact, you can practice and apply the stages of the loop better - for example, making a list of questions you'd like to ask yourself during the observe phase in a given scenario. You practice consciously asking yourself observation questions enough and in time the brain integrates that into the subconscious processing loop.

Y_Y 6y ago
It not a description of how light behaves at all.

WJW 6y ago

While I agree that the OODA loop is most often presented as a (fairly obvious) decision model for individuals, the model itself is not the big idea. Rather, the primary value comes from the realization that in a competition (like war, or business, or sports, etc) between two or more individuals/groups the ones who can "cycle through" the OODA loop will be able to adapt faster and often gain the upper hand through superior decision making. In the context of the military, there are ways of reorganizing your command structure to enable faster OODA loop cycling. For example, a major driver of the "slowness" of traditional armies is their centralization of command. Propagating new intel up the chain and orders down to the troops takes a lot of time, especially when intermediate nodes keep dropping out. If you can delegate your decision making to the lowest possible level, this will make the average decision slightly worse, but because you can make each decision much faster you can still come out ahead overall. This is one of the ways an organization can "practice" the loop. (And coincidentally, one that growing startups often struggle with since it is very difficult to transition from direct command to delegation based command) I also don't agree with your claim that you can't "practice" the loop on an individual level. Anyone who suffers from indecision in the face of uncertainty and overwhelming options ("analysis paralysis") should know that it is something you get better at over time, especially when you need to be doing it under time pressure. Source: Was a Navy officer for 14 years, we had tons of discussions of "how to get into the opponents loop" during briefings and trainings. Note that in the military it is sometimes possible to actively slow down the opponents OODA looping, something that is probably illegal for most civilian companies. (Though see https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ for a legal example)

yowlingcat 6y ago
Great point and part of why I've increasingly developed a preference for Kanban and optimizing cycle time at organizations I've worked at. There's a great blog post [1] that popped up in my network which I think does an excellent job of describing this in a very visual, tangible manner. [1] https://erikbern.com/2019/10/16/buffet-lines-are-terrible.html https://erikbern.com/2019/10/16/buffet-lines-are-terrible.ht...
EthanHeilman 6y ago

elethon 6y ago

It might be overhyped but that doesn't mean there's nothing valuable in the model. While it might describe how the world works, it is also intended to bring your attention to specifics. For instance, maybe you don't do a great job of actually looking (observing as it's called in the model). If you have this model in your head to refer to, you can stop and think "Wait, I need to make sure that I'm considering all the relevant evidence before acting".

gpm 6y ago

I've never been in an organization that needs this sort of model, but my assumption was it was more about what not to do. Don't second guess yourself endlessly, don't panic, don't reminisce about what could have been, don't blindly repeat your last action, don't freeze, etc. In high stress situations people tend to do dumb things, this sounds to me like an attempt to say "don't do that" without saying the word "don't" or specifying the "that".

beckingz 6y ago
Sufficiently large organizations easily panic, second guess themselves, etc. Formalizing the decision making process helps get to the point where you can make a decision. In risk averse organizations, this is extremely valuable.

sjwest 6y ago

I agree that the OODA theory is in line with what any behaviour is. I think the real value of it is with its implementation : "Fail fast, fail often" and agile mentality is born from this original theory, and I think these tactics are invaluable for rapid progress. I think this also makes OODA an effective strategy: being able to conceptualise the whole system/problem in a holistic manner, and being able to quickly ascertain what are the important variables/factors, and therefore what you need do to to achieve the greatest impact/effect in line with your goal. This is, in my view, the whole point of OODA, and this takes a shrewd intellect and a lot of practice to get good at! This kind of goes beyond the basic OODA acronym, but consideration of approach through each of the OODA stages is where the value of this theory resides. Indeed I try to implement this approach in my work as a scientist each day!