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The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions

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Re: The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions

#21

Post by codeulike »

Boyd's famous OODA loop (observe-orient-decide-act) is probably the most misunderstood and misused diagram of practical significance in decision making. It is to decision-making what the five elements (earth/fire/water/wind/ether) model from alchemy is to modern chemistry. Or what Freud's id-ego-superego model is to neuroscience ... Though the terms and concepts of the OODA loop are intuitive and coherent at least at a first pass, there is fundamentally no way to use them entirely safely without making gross errors. Just as there is no way to do modern chemistry using alchemical concepts without making gross errors. Or trying to do neurosurgery based on an id-ego-superego map of the brain without making gross errors.

https://breakingsmart.substack.com/p/the-use-and-misuse-of-t...

Re: The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions

#22

Post by [deleted] »

cratermoon wrote: post #12

"Because they’re developed and tested in the relentless laboratory of conflict, military mental models have practical applications far beyond their original context." Really? How does that follow? Just because a process has been optimized for effectiveness in one area doesn't make it easily generalizable. It's probably more likely to be less effective, or even worse, outside the specific realm.

[deleted]

Re: The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions

#23

Post by gpm »

hedgew wrote: post #2

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 milit…

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".

Re: The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions

#24

Post by parkersweb »

peatmoss wrote: post #13

I recently listened to a podcast that talked about the strengths of this model, but then also talked about the kinds of problems where OODA loops are a poor fit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000sr4s

Seconded - I particularly enjoyed the references to how OODA was applied by Dominic Cummings in the Brexit vote campaign - but also how that same thinking is flawed when faced with everyday running of government.

Re: The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions

#25

Post by jmcalvay »

codeulike wrote: post #21

Boyd's famous OODA loop (observe-orient-decide-act) is probably the most misunderstood and misused diagram of practical significance in decision making. It is to decision-making what the five elements (earth/fire/water/wind/ether) model from alchemy is to modern chemistry. Or what Freud's id-ego-superego model is to neuroscience ... Though the terms and concepts of the OODA loop are intuitive and coherent at least at…

I've been enjoying this video series with interviews of Boyd's surviving collaborators as a way to separate out what he meant from what folks often misunderstand:

Chet Richards (as it relates to business) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDhznBtN24

Chuck Spinney (as it relates to epistemology) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdK4y6O-llE

Both - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWfbPoDuEwg

(they're from this meetup: https://52livingideas.com/)

Re: The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions

#26

Post by EthanHeilman »

WJW wrote: post #14
hedgew wrote: post #2

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 milit…

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 sup…

>I also don't agree with your claim that you can't "practice" the loop on an individual level.

To further agree with what you are saying...

In many sports: people put work in to run their OODA loop faster even they don't call it that. People watch videos of their opponents to learn how to more quickly orient their opponents actions with the context of the sport.

In engineering: unittests, debuggers and IDEs are all designed to provide information that allows a faster OODA loop.

The idea of rapid iteration is based on the idea in exploratory settings with low information a faster OODA loop is often better than a smarter but slower OODA loop.

Re: The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions

#27

Post by joosters »

Before stating *how* fighter pilots make fast and accurate decisions, surely we need to study *if* fighter pilots make fast and accurate decisions? I mean, do they really? What evidence is there that pilots are great, or even above average, decision makers?

Re: The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions

#29

Post by vz8 »

On a longer timeframe, PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) / PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) models[0] are common, and I run into them frequently in non-profit social/community work. The "Do" part of the cycle is frequently misunderstood, it's more of a test.

I've found PDSA to be challenging with developers, with a tendency to want to short-circuit the process and leap intuitively to the "solution" at the end of the cycle. Talented, experienced, and ignorant all end up looking like P-A-P-A (or just AAAA with a spectacular thud at the end when things finally hit the fan).

The author "recommended a process of “deductive destruction”: paying attention to your own assumptions and biases, then finding fundamental mental models to replace them." -- going to borrow a few ideas from the article and try a different approach for a few of our Mavericks...

[0] https://asq.org/quality-resources/pdca-cycle

Re: The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions

#30

Post by mellosouls »

For martial arts practitioners (or just those interested in the subject or self defence etc), Rory Miller uses the OODA loop for framing some of his advice in his Meditations on Violence:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3396377-meditations-on-v...

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