OODA loop explained
The OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act) is a decision-making model developed by military strategist and United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd. He applied the concept to the combat operations process, often at the operational level during military campaigns. It is often applied to understand commercial operations and learning processes. The approach explains how agility can overcome raw power in dealing with human opponents.
The OODA loop has become an important concept in litigation,[1] business,[2] law enforcement,[3] management education,[4] [5] military strategy and cyber security and cyberwarfare.[6] According to Boyd, decision-making occurs in a iterative 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 and/or more effectively than an opponent, can thereby get inside the opponent's decision cycle and gain the advantage.
Some scholars are critical of the concept. Aviation historian Michael Hankins, for example, writes that "the OODA loop is vague enough that its defenders and attackers can each see what they want to see in it. For some, the OODA concept’s flexibility is its strength, but for others it becomes so generalized as to lose its usefulness." He concludes that "The OODA loop is merely one way among a myriad of ways of describing intuitive processes of learning and decision making that most people experience daily. It is not incorrect, but neither is it unique or especially profound."[7]
See also
References
Bibliography
- Book: Boyd
, John R.
. Destruction and Creation . U.S. Army Command and General Staff College . 3 September 1976.
- Boyd, John, R., The Essence of Winning and Losing, 28 June 1995 a five slide set by Boyd.
- Book: Dreier, A.S. . Strategy, Planning & Litigating to Win . 2012 . Boston, MA . Conatus Press . 978-0615676951 . 917563752.
- Greene, Robert, OODA and You
- Hillaker, Harry, Code one magazine, "John Boyd, United States Air Force Retired, Father of the F16", July 1997.
- Linger, Henry, Constructing The Infrastructure for the Knowledge Economy: Methods and Tools, Theory and Practice, p. 449
- Metayer, Estelle, Decision making: It's all about taking off – and landing safely…, Competia, December 2011
- Osinga, Frans, "Science, Strategy and War The Strategic Theory of John Boyd"
- Richards, Chet, Certain to Win: the Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business (2004)
- Ullman, David G., https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/20f020_65b20dec99cb45d0bd1456ed526c09b8.pdf"OO–OO–OO!” The Sound of a Broken OODA Loop], Crosstalk, April 2007
External links
Notes and References
- Dreier pp. 20–85.
- Richards pp. 162–171.
- Web site: Papenfuhs . Steve (Pappy) . The OODA loop, reaction time, and decision making . PoliceOne.com . 3 November 2016 .
- Ryder . Mike . Downs . Carolyn . Rethinking reflective practice: John Boyd's OODA loop as an alternative to Kolb . The International Journal of Management Education . November 2022 . 20 . 3 . 100703 . 10.1016/j.ijme.2022.100703 . free .
- Book: Ryder . Mike . Wall . Tony . Trevisan . Laís Viera . Filho . Walter Leal . Shore . Adam . Sustainability in Business Education, Research and Practices . 2024 . Springer . 978-3-031-55995-2 . 77–89 . https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-55996-9_6 . Using OODA Loops to Build Sustainable Practice into Business Education. World Sustainability Series . 10.1007/978-3-031-55996-9_6 .
- Book: Clarke, Richard. The Fifth Domain:Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats. Penguin Press. 2019. 978-0525561965. 81.
- Michael W. Hankins, Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia (Cornell University Press, 2021), 134-135.
