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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

#91

Post by rramadass »

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…

>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 insightful. Each node in the chain is a self-correcting loop. The trick is to make sure that information is sent up the chain more rapidly so that each node can use it to act on its own within the broader objective. Note that "information loss" is a function of both the number of nodes in the chain and time.

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

#92

Post by rrmm »

rawgabbit wrote: post #89

I always thought pilots were taught “aviate navigate then communicate.” Don’t fly into the ground. If safe then figure out where you are in relation to your destination. If safe then talk. My issue with OODA and other decision frameworks is that in complex situations a lot information we get is noise, misunderstandings, or lies. Separating the wheat from the chaff takes a very long time. During the meantime, the best…

The context here is in adversarial fights. The more important insight is that both you and your opponent are executing the same loop, so there may be an advantage to be had by completing it faster (or multiple times) before your opponent can act.

Naming the process is just letting you think about decision making explicitly. I can't see it being a complete general framework for decision making.

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

#94

Post by Communitivity »

Dr. Mica Endsley created a model of Situational Awareness that expands on the OODA loop [1]. There are critics, but I've found her model and papers to be outstanding when I've worked on Intelligent Software Agent projects.

Another related topic is the adaption of the OODA loop to military command decisions, what the US military calls the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) [2][3]. I would recommend reading about the MDMP to anyone running a business, or being a technical lead. I'd also recommend the the better known books The Art of War [4] by Sun Tzu and The Book of Five Rings [5] by Miyamoto Musashi.

I've had some chuckle at the idea of a book ostensibly on sword fighting being useful in business, until I mention the 9 basic principles Musashi lays out in the first section:

* "Do not think dishonestly."

* "The Way is in training."

* "Become acquainted with every art."

* "Know the Ways of all professions"

* "Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters."

* "Develop an intuitive judgement and understanding for everything."

* "Perceive those things which cannot be seen."

* "Pay attention even to trifles."

* "Do nothing which is of no use."

The analogy to business is also in the MDMP, as seen from the the 7 top level steps of the MDMP, from Wikipedia:

* Receipt of Mission

* Mission Analysis

* Course of action (COA) Development

* COA Analysis (aka Wargaming)

* COA Comparison

* COA Approval

* Orders Production, Dissemination, and Transition

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/210198492_Endsley_M...

[2] https://militarydecisiongr.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/a-gui...

[3] https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog-ws/view/100.ATSC/E4166A5D...

[4] https://suntzusaid.com/

[5] http://books.ebooklibrary.org/members/worldebooklibrary/five...

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

#96

Post by karmakaze »

haggy wrote: post #95
karmakaze wrote: post #47

I'm going to attempt to consciously apply this to my StarCraft II playing and see if I make faster progress.

That could be interesting. Update us on how it goes :D

Will do. I know that my biggest deficiency is using what little information I have at any time to make big, risky decisions without ever thinking to verify (i.e. Orient) that hypothesis. It will come down to an effective playing style that suits my abilities (which are also malleable).

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

#97

Post by JSeymourATL »

apress wrote: post #64
JSeymourATL wrote: post #4

Related: terrific biography. Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram > https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd

Chip design guru Jim Keller told me this was one of his favorite books (and highly influenced his business approach) when I interviewed him last year. https://fortune.com/longform/microchip-designer-jim-keller-i...

@apress Love hearing these stories, thanks for sharing!

BTW, great profile piece on Keller and impressive portfolio of articles on Fortune.

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

#98

Post by blaser-waffle »

dheera wrote: post #66
Jtsummers wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The eureka was giving it a name in order to articulate its importance in tactical and strategic thinking. That's really it. Other people, throughout history, have operated in the same fashion but either not described what they did or described it in different terms.

Hmm interesting. Maybe I should give a name to shoveling dirt. Look, Align, Poke, Scoop. LAPS. The most efficient way to get the most dirt shoveled is the LAPS loop. It's revolutionary. Can I be famous?

Dig into this a little more, so to speak.

If you can stretch the joke for 3-5 pages you could be an RFC.

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

#99

Post by jasonra »

dheera wrote: post #34
nateberkopec wrote: post #7

For anyone interested in OODA, the Robert Coram biography of John Boyd, and "Certain to Win" by the Boyd disciple Chet Richards are good entry points. The value of OODA isn't really in providing a model for individual-level decisionmaking. The value is as a model for intra-organizational conflict: that one obtains strategic advantage (i.e. tempo) by running through one's OODA loop faster than competitors or opponents…

I'm unclear as to what's novel about OODA. Can someone give me an alternative model for context? It seems like all other permutations, e.g. DOAO or ADOO or DOOA wouldn't make sense, so what is the "eureka" about OODA? Also, separately, it just sounds to me like perception (OO), planning (D), control (A) renamed so I'm still not seeing what's novel about it.

See here the original presentation on OODA Loop that has been given at Quantico Marine base dozens of times by John Boyd's associate of 20 years Chuck Spinney. It shows the thinking method behind the OODA Loop--Evolutionary Epistemology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdK4y6O-llE
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