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  • #32234

    IMO one of the greatest tactical elements of KM is how one goes instantly from ‘attacked’ mode into delivering simultaneous / near-simultaneous defenses & offensive counters – thus short circuiting the attacker’s plan and having the advantage by seizing the initiative..

    The OODA Loop:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_Loop
    The OODA Loop (for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) is a concept applied to the combat operations process, often at strategic level in both the military and commercial operations. It was created by military strategist and USAF Colonel John Boyd.

    Diagram[1] of a decision cycle known as the Boyd cycle, or the OODA loop.

    It has become an important concept in both business and military strategy. According to Boyd, 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 gain the advantage. Frans Osinga argues that Boyd’s own views on the OODA loop are much deeper, richer, and more comprehensive than the common interpretation of the ‘rapid OODA loop’ idea.[2]


    Boyd developed the concept to explain 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. He also indicated that the phase of the battle has an important bearing on the ideal allocation of one’s energies.
    Boyd’s diagram shows that all decisions are based on observations of the evolving situation tempered with implicit filtering of the problem being addressed. These observations are the raw information on which decisions and actions are based. The observed information must be processed to orient it for further making a decision. In notes from his talk “Organic Design for Command and Control”, Boyd said,

    The second O, orientation – as the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences – is the most important part of the O-O-D-A loop since it shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act.[3]

    As stated by Boyd and shown in the “Orient” box, there is much filtering of the information through our culture, genetics, ability to analyze and synthesize, and previous experience. Since the OODA Loop was designed to describe a single decision maker, the situation is usually much worse than shown as most business and technical decisions have a team of people observing and orienting, each bringing their own cultural traditions, genetics, experience and other information. It is no wonder that it is here that decisions often get stuck and the OODA Loop is reduced to the stuttering sound of “OO-OO-OO”.[4] Getting stuck does not lead to winning, since

    In order to win, we should operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than our adversaries–or, better yet, get inside [the] adversary’s Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action time cycle or loop. … Such activity will make us appear ambiguous (unpredictable) thereby generate confusion and disorder among our adversaries–since our adversaries will be unable to generate mental images or pictures that agree with the menacing as well as faster transient rhythm or patterns they are competing against.[5]

    The OODA loop that focuses on strategic military requirements, was adapted for business and public sector operational continuity planning. Compare it with the Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) cycle or Shewhart cycle, which focuses on the operational or tactical level of projects. [6]
    As one of Boyd’s colleagues, Harry Hillaker, put it in “John Boyd, USAFF16[7]: Retired, Father of the

    The key is to obscure your intentions and make them unpredictable to your opponent while you simultaneously clarify his intentions. That is, operate at a faster tempo to generate rapidly changing conditions that inhibit your opponent from adapting or reacting to those changes and that suppress or destroy his awareness. Thus, a hodgepodge of confusion and disorder occur to cause him to over- or under-react to conditions or activities that appear to be uncertain, ambiguous, or incomprehensible.

    Writer Robert Greene wrote in an article called OODA and You [8] that

    the proper mindset is to let go a little, to allow some of the chaos to become part of his mental system, and to use it to his advantage by simply creating more chaos and confusion for the opponent. He funnels the inevitable chaos of the battlefield in the direction of the enemy.

    Application of the OODA loop

    Consider a fighter pilot being scrambled to shoot down an enemy aircraft.
    Before the enemy airplane is even within visual contact range, the pilot will consider any available information about the likely identity of the enemy pilot: his nationality, level of training, and cultural traditions that may come into play.
    When the enemy aircraft comes into radar contact, more direct information about the speed, size, and maneuverability, of the enemy plane becomes available; unfolding circumstances take priority over radio chatter. A first decision is made based on the available information so far: the pilot decides to “get into the sun” above his opponent, and acts by applying control inputs to climb. Back to observation: is the attacker reacting to the change of altitude? Then to orient: is the enemy reacting characteristically, or perhaps acting like a noncombatant? Is his plane exhibiting better-than-expected performance?
    As the dogfight begins, little time is devoted to orienting unless some new information pertaining to the actual identity or intent of the attacker comes into play. Information cascades in real time, and the pilot does not have time to process it consciously; the pilot reacts as he is trained to, and conscious thought is directed to supervising the flow of action and reaction, continuously repeating the OODA cycle. Simultaneously, the opponent is going through the same cycle.
    How does one interfere with an opponent’s OODA cycle? One of John Boyd’s primary insights in fighter combat was that it is vital to change speed and direction faster than the opponent. This is not necessarily a function of the plane’s ability to maneuver, rather the pilot must think and act faster than the opponent can think and act. Getting “inside” the cycle — short-circuiting the opponent’s thinking processes – produces opportunities for the opponent to react inappropriately.
    Another tactical-level example can be found on the basketball court, where a player takes possession of the ball and must get past an opponent who is taller or faster. A straight dribble or pass is unlikely to succeed. Instead the player may engage in a rapid and elaborate series of body movements designed to befuddle the opponent and deny him the ability to take advantage of his superior size or speed. At a basic level of play, this may be merely a series of fakes, with the hope that the opponent will make a mistake or an opening will occur. But practice and mental focus may allow one to reduce the time scale, get inside the opponent’s OODA loop, and take control of the situation – to cause the opponent to move in a particular way, and generate an advantage rather than merely reacting to an accident.
    The same cycle operates over a longer timescale in a competitive business landscape, and the same logic applies. Decision makers gather information (observe), form hypotheses about customer activity and the intentions of competitors (orient), make decisions, and act on them. The cycle is repeated continuously. 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 approach favors agility over raw power in dealing with human opponents in any endeavor. John Boyd put this ethos into practice with his work for the USAF. He was an advocate of maneuverable fighter aircraft, in contrast to the heavy, powerful jet fighters that were prevalent in the 1960s, such as the F-4 Phantom II and General Dynamics F-111. Boyd inspired the Light Weight Fighter Project that produced the successful F-16 Fighting Falcon and F/A-18 Hornet, which were still in use by the United States and several other military powers into the twenty-first century.

    #76901

    Re: The OODA Loop

    That is actually the only diagram of the cycle that Boyd approved of, as he considered it an evolving piece. There is lots of great information available, so much so, that just when you think you understand the cycle, you discover a new nuance. A great work to read is Boyd’s theory of destruction and creation, or the ability to analyze and synthesize. One of the things that makes Boyd’s stuff so difficult to really understand, is that he never wrote it down in actual essay form, it’s all lectures. Some of them as long as 14 hours. Great stuff!

    #76905
    stevetuna
    Member

    Re: The OODA Loop

    That’s good stuff and all, but I showed up late for my advanced km-X class and took the floor without my protective cup. A ten-year-old orange belt smacked me in the balls and I fell into an OODA loop of my own.

    That’ll teach me!

    #76907
    phlegmon27
    Member

    Re: The OODA Loop

    My students get educated on the OODA loop regularly. I find it to be a key concept in self defense (Learning to go from the first O to the A without stopping in the middle).

    #76913
    kirsten
    Moderator

    Re: The OODA Loop

    Yeah don’t get me started on the OODA Loop. We will be here all day, lol. The man was brilliant!

    #76952

    Re: The OODA Loop

    Its amazing that as such a revolutionary thinker, he was not only tolerated by the military establishment but also actively supported to run his think tank and his ideas being allowed to percolate upwards, influencing US military doctrine – in an organisation generally resistant to change, akin to steering a super tanker…(like most large organisations).

    Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)

    Link to his essay ‘Destruction and Creation’: http://www.chetrichards.com/modern_business_strategy/boyd/destruction/destruction_and_creation.htm

    Boyd compendium: http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/john-r-boyd/

    One of his lectures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbb48uUOkqQ

    Colonel John (Richard) Boyd (January 23, 1927ñMarch 9, 1997) was a United States Air Force fighter pilot and military strategist of the late 20th century, whose theories have been highly influential in the military and in business.
    The OODA Loop

    Boyd’s key concept was that of the decision cycle or OODA Loop, the process by which an entity (either an individual or an organization) reacts to an event. According to this idea, the key to victory is to be able to create situations wherein one can make appropriate decisions more quickly than one’s opponent. The construct was originally a theory of achieving success in air-to-air combat, developed out of Boyd’s Energy-Maneuverability theory and his observations on air combat between MiGs and F-86s in Korea. Harry Hillaker (chief designer of the F-16) said of the OODA theory, “Time is the dominant parameter. The pilot who goes through the OODA cycle in the shortest time prevails because his opponent is caught responding to situations that have already changed.”
    Boyd hypothesized that all intelligent organisms and organizations undergo a continuous cycle of interaction with their environment. Boyd breaks this cycle down to four interrelated and overlapping processes through which one cycles continuously:

    • Observation: the collection of data by means of the senses
    • Orientation: the analysis and synthesis of data to form one’s current mental perspective
    • Decision: the determination of a course of action based on one’s current mental perspective
    • Action: the physical playing-out of decisions

    This decision cycle is thus known as the OODA loop. Boyd emphasized that this decision cycle is the central mechanism enabling adaptation (apart from natural selection) and is therefore critical to survival.
    Boyd theorized that large organizations such as corporations, governments, or militaries possessed a hierarchy of OODA loops at tactical, grand-tactical (operational art), and strategic levels. In addition, he stated that most effective organizations have a highly decentralized chain of command that utilizes objective-driven orders, or directive control, rather than method-driven orders in order to harness the mental capacity and creative abilities of individual commanders at each level. In 2003, this power to the edge concept took the form of a DOD publication “Power to the Edge: Command…Control…in the Information Age” by Dr. David S. Alberts and Richard E. Hayes. Boyd argued that such a structure creates a flexible “organic whole” that is quicker to adapt to rapidly changing situations. He noted, however, that any such highly decentralized organization would necessitate a high degree of mutual trust and a common outlook that came from prior shared experiences. Headquarters needs to know that the troops are perfectly capable of forming a good plan for taking a specific objective, and the troops need to know that Headquarters does not direct them to achieve certain objectives without good reason.
    In 2007, strategy writer Robert Greene discussed the loop in a post called OODA and You. He insisted that it was “deeply relevant to any kind of competitive environment: business, politics, sports, even the struggle of organisms to survive”, and claimed to have been initially “struck by its brilliance”.

    [edit] Foundation of theories

    Boyd never wrote a book on military strategy. The central works encompassing his theories on warfare consist of a several hundred slide presentation entitled Discourse on Winning & Losing and a short essayDestruction & Creation (1976). entitled
    In Destruction & Creation, Boyd attempts to provide a philosophicaltheoriesGˆdel‘s Incompleteness Theorem, Heisenberg‘s Uncertainty Principle, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics to provide a context and rationale for the development of the OODA Loop. foundation for his on warfare. In it he integrates
    Boyd inferred the following from each of these theories:

    From this set of considerations, Boyd concluded that to maintain an accurate or effective grasp of reality one must undergo a continuous cycle of interaction with the environment geared to assessing its constant changes. Boyd, though he was hardly the first to do so, then expanded Darwin‘s theory of evolution, suggesting that natural selection applies not only in biological but also in social contexts (such as the survival of nations during war or businesses in free market competition). Integrating these two concepts, he stated that the decision cycle was the central mechanism of adaptation (in a social context) and that increasing one’s own rate and accuracy of assessment vis-a-vis one’s counterpart’s rate and accuracy of assessment provides a substantial advantage in war or other forms of competition.

    Elements of warfare

    Boyd divided warfare into three distinct elements:

    • Moral Warfare: the destruction of the enemy’s will to win, via alienation from allies (or potential allies) and internal fragmentation. Ideally resulting in the “dissolution of the moral bonds that permit an organic whole [organization] to exist.” (i.e., breaking down the mutual trust and common outlook mentioned in the paragraph above.)
    • Mental Warfare: the distortion of the enemy’s perception of reality through disinformation, ambiguous posturing, and/or severing of the communication/information infrastructure.
    • Physical Warfare: the destruction of the enemy’s physical resources such as weapons, people, and logistical assets.
    #76970
    jl
    Member

    Re: The OODA Loop

    There is a very good book out that talks at length about the use of the OODA Loop and also the concept of the GMD (Group Monkey Dance). It is called the Meditations Of Violence by Sgt. Rory Miller. Also, ceck out the Gavin DeBecker book called “Gift of Fear” It is a part of my book collection with KM materials as well. JL

    #77023

    Re: The OODA Loop

    quote JL:

    There is a very good book out that talks at length about the use of the OODA Loop and also the concept of the GMD (Group Monkey Dance). It is called the Meditations Of Violence by Sgt. Rory Miller. Also, ceck out the Gavin DeBecker book called “Gift of Fear” It is a part of my book collection with KM materials as well. JL

    Nice – thanks for the tip,
    Looks very interesting – I think I will be ordering it soon, http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Martial-Training/dp/1594391181

    Gift of Fear – I have read this one & its definitely a must-have..

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