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

209 points by feross 6y ago

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
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- 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!
deleted 6y ago
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JSeymourATL 6y ago
Related: terrific biography. Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram > https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd
- davejohnclark 6y ago
  Second this. I first heard about this book in a comment on HN a few years ago (can't find it at the moment to link), and happily pay it forward whenever I can.
- apress 6y ago
  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-intel-fortune-500-apple-tesla-amd/ https://fortune.com/longform/microchip-designer-jim-keller-i...
  - JSeymourATL 6y ago
    @apress Love hearing these stories, thanks for sharing! BTW, great profile piece on Keller and impressive portfolio of articles on Fortune.
- F00Fbug 6y ago
  Easily in my top 10 list of books!
nateberkopec 6y ago
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. You can draw a very straight line from OODA to the Lean Startup.
- WJW 6y ago
  Indeed. The OODA loop model describes how you can win a competition by responding to a changing situation on the battlefield faster than your opponent. The Lean Startup describes basically the same thing but for civilian companies, and where the opponent is "the market" rather than a more well defined enemy. "The Art of Action" by Stephen Bungay is also a very good book on this subject.
  - la6471 6y ago
    Unfortunately people bring this hyper competitive mentality in meetings and other situations where collaboration would be more beneficial than competition. I am specifically referring to the impulse some people have in making quick decisions without due diligence , just to stay in charge or for other ulterior motives. And when the majority acts like that more reasonable voices gets drowned in the din. While heathy competition is good we also need to be vigilant about not taking it too far to the point where we lose the way.
    - lb1lf 6y ago
      -At a former employer, we suddenly found ourselves with a fresh hire manager who subscribed wholeheartedly to the 'Move fast and break things' mindset. Additionally, he had a very strong urge to show everybody who had the last word. Only problem was, we built heavy machinery (Think low megawatt range) - so 'breaking a build' most often meant something blew up - in the quite literal sense. Took a little getting used to, that.
- 6y ago
cratermoon 6y ago
"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 6y ago
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peatmoss 6y ago
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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000sr4s
- parkersweb 6y ago
  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.
sodomak 6y ago
The OODA Loop in context of cryptoanarchy https://youtu.be/gTtbkguROdk?t=358 https://youtu.be/gTtbkguROdk?t=358
codeulike 6y ago
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-the-ooda-loop https://breakingsmart.substack.com/p/the-use-and-misuse-of-t...
- jmcalvay 6y ago
  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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDhznBtN24 Chuck Spinney (as it relates to epistemology) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdK4y6O-llE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdK4y6O-llE Both - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWfbPoDuEwg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWfbPoDuEwg (they're from this meetup: https://52livingideas.com/ https://52livingideas.com/)
- sooheon 6y ago
  Great article, they've actually done the "analysis" and "synthesis" wrt the OODA loop, as opposed to Farnam Street's somewhat wide eyed adulation.
joosters 6y ago
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?
- angry_octet 6y ago
  What we can say is that, in the engagement scenarios we believe are likely, certain pilots are better than others. And by better I mean that the opponent dies. It is true that a computer will sometimes come up with stronger responses, even against strong human players, but it usually does this by choosing certain death for some of the pilots. While human pilots do accept certain death directions in combat (for example, to defend a high value asset like a trip transport), that still likely means that the planner failed. It's going to be interesting when we have robot planes; not only can they pull 10Gs for >10s, they can do it very quickly, and you can commit them to high risk engagements.
- earthboundkid 6y ago
  A lot of the discussion here is assuming that the US military is good at what it does, but we've been losing for twenty years to people who live without electricity, so either the Taliban has a lightning fast OODA loop or the concept is basically useless as applied.
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - rramadass 6y ago
    Guerrilla Warfare IS OODA/RPDM/Naturalistic Decision making/<insert any decision making acronym here> in action. All we are doing is emphasize on different stages and coming up with new acronyms. Decision Making is as old as mankind and the only constituents are flexibility in thinking, timing, delegation and action.
- edrxty 6y ago
  Ding ding ding! This thread is cargo culting hard. This is just a tool for making decisions in stressful situations buy forcing a separation of planning and acting so you don't flop around frantically. It's not a tool for organizations or your startup. Maybe it works for that but its applicability to you're startup should be proven independently.
glitchc 6y ago
OODA by itself is not useful unless a fighter pilot can do it quickly. Acquiring yomi (getting into the mind of the opponent) is far more useful for winning dogfights.
vz8 6y ago
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 https://asq.org/quality-resources/pdca-cycle
- goliatone 6y ago
  PDCA sounds to me like it would fit with the agile scrum cycle of plan, sprint, review and retro? I would not be surprised if scrum is just repackaging
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    I'm not sure Scrum is a repackaging, but it frustrates me that more people aren't familiar with the Deming-Shewart cycle (PDCA) which leads neatly into the Toyota Production System and Lean.
mellosouls 6y ago
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-violence https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3396377-meditations-on-v...
dingosity 6y ago
As it turns out, John Boyd went to flight school w/ my dad and we saw quite a bit of him when they were both working on the F-15 program. I still literally have the scars. OODA by itself is simplistic, but it was part of a larger presentation called "Patterns of Conflict," and you should probably look at that presentation before deciding what OODA means. I found a printed copy from my dad's records that's not quite as long as the one I found online (and heck, maybe there are later versions available as well.) Anyway... it might be useful to read this to get an idea of the original context of the "OODA Loop." https://geekboss.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/patterns-of-conflict.pdf https://geekboss.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/patterns-of-... [I have no affiliation w/ geekboss. they were just the first hit when i searched "patterns of conflict presentation"] Also, here's "Destruction and Creation," which was more popular among staff officers I came in contact with. http://www.goalsys.com/books/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREATION.pdf http://www.goalsys.com/books/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREAT... There are a lot of "applying OODA to business" type blog posts and presentations. I'm not sure I'm qualified to evaluate their value, but for me, getting the extra context of what was going on in the Air Force in the early 70s into the 80s was useful in understanding the meaning and intent of what Boyd wrote about "OODA."
beaconstudios 6y ago
The OODA loop is just entry-level cybernetics; it describes a single (negative/balancing/homeostatic) feedback loop. Knowing OODA is a good start for learning about the mechanics of self correcting systems but for some reason cybernetics doesn't come up often in association with it. It's like learning how to code a todo list but not knowing that more advanced programs are possible because you're not aware that what you're doing is a small part of a whole field called "programming".
- retrocryptid 6y ago
  There's source material the FS blog isn't giving you. You probably want to read that before saying "OODA is just Cybernetics." Having read both Norbert Weiner and John Boyd, I can assure you there's more to it than what's presented by the fs.blog link. Though... yes... Cybernetics cut a swath through Systems Command in the 60s and 70s, but if you slog through dissertations at the Air War College, you'll find several critiques of Cybernetics for it's lack of descriptive power in an environment with incomplete information. See Lind's Manouver Warfare Handbook for more details.
  - beaconstudios 6y ago
    Thanks, I'll check it out. For what it's worth I agree that cybernetics alone isn't as useful for describing complex systems as it is for designing adaptive processes like OODA. That's more the realm of systems dynamics and causal analysis.
7402 6y ago
"Gödel’s theorems, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics" Bah. It drives me crazy when people use scientific or mathematical principles as psychological metaphors, without understanding what the principles actually mean. They usually get it wrong. When you apply the Uncertainty Principle to a flying airplane, it implies the exact opposite of what the author thinks it does. A fighter jet is a macroscopic object. Assuming I recall my college physics correctly, if the velocity of the plane is "only" known to within a quintillionth of a m/s, then the position is "only" knowable within a few hundredths of a quintillionth of a meter.
- thethimble 6y ago
  Maybe better would have been "Bayesian Inference"?
karmakaze 6y ago
I'm going to attempt to consciously apply this to my StarCraft II playing and see if I make faster progress.
- haggy 6y ago
  That could be interesting. Update us on how it goes :D
  - karmakaze 6y ago
    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).
KineticLensman 6y ago
Observe, Overreact, Deny, Apologise?
rootsudo 6y ago
As with many things in aviation, it's checklist, redundancy and training. Things go wrong with you skip one and become very expensive or deadly quick.
zoomablemind 6y ago
I agree with the points made here that OODA is just as good as any other mental technique acronym. The mental frameworks for decisionmaking under time constraint and information overload are inevitably too rational. Their main objective is to be able to act in progressively efficient manner. However simply relying on these frameworks as prescribed under the real constraints will lead to even higher information overload and thus loss of time. In fast-flowing situations human actions tend to follow the emotional reaction route, bypassing the the slower rational reasoning. Emotional route is faster, but success of such reaction depends heavily on the learned behavior. Closing your eyes to "hide" is obviously not going to help one to flee a danger. So, using any kind of mental framework is the most valuable in training. This helps transform the reasoned actions into learned behavior to be [hopefully] triggered as a reaction under the constraints.
pretendscholar 6y ago
>Although Boyd is regarded as a military strategist, he didn’t confine himself to any particular discipline. His theories encompass ideas drawn from various disciplines, including mathematical logic, biology, psychology, thermodynamics, game theory, anthropology, and physics. This guy is really setting off my bs radar. Godel's theorem, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, entropy, this is like gpt-reddit.
chriselles 6y ago
I’m a non-resident fellow at the Krulak Center for Creativity & Innovative, Marine Corps University. It wasn’t just fighter pilots, the United States Marine Corps were deeply influenced by John Boyd’s work and his body of work is held by MCU. Major Ian Brown has written a great book on John Boyd that is available free on PDF that is really quite good: https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/ANewConceptionOfWar.pdf?ver=2018-11-08-094859-167 https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/ANewConceptionOfWar.pdf?ve...
dangoljames 6y ago
Effing Brilliant.
dang 6y ago
I thought there were more past threads about this but the only significant ones I could find are The OODA Loop and the Half-Beat - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22601681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22601681 - March 2020 (31 comments) Ask HN: How do you apply Boyd's OODA Loop in your life? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16447690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16447690 - Feb 2018 (10 comments) John Boyd and the four qualities of victorious organizations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6669129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6669129 - Nov 2013 (29 comments)
vr46 6y ago
In the UK we have advanced motorcycle training that uses the IPSGA loop: * Information * Position * Speed * Gear * Acceleration Bikers are probably more prone to injury and death than your average fighter pilot, too.
rawgabbit 6y ago
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 thing to do is to minimize risk in case the info is true. Only if we are certain the info is real, should we perform a complete course correction.
- rrmm 6y ago
  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.
vncecartersknee 6y ago
Do you really need to pretend you're a fighter pilot to be productive at the office come on guys
Communitivity 6y ago
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_MR_Toward_a_Theory_of_Situation_Awareness_in_Dynamic_Systems_Human_Factors_Journal_371_32-64 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/210198492_Endsley_M... [2] https://militarydecisiongr.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/a-guide-to-the-mdmp.pdf https://militarydecisiongr.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/a-gui... [3] https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog-ws/view/100.ATSC/E4166A5D-0FE7-4780-916A-A7E9B227147C-1337689957702/adp5_0.pdf https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog-ws/view/100.ATSC/E4166A5D... [4] https://suntzusaid.com/ https://suntzusaid.com/ [5] http://books.ebooklibrary.org/members/worldebooklibrary/fivering.pdf http://books.ebooklibrary.org/members/worldebooklibrary/five...

209 points by feross 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
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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!

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JSeymourATL 6y ago

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

davejohnclark 6y ago
Second this. I first heard about this book in a comment on HN a few years ago (can't find it at the moment to link), and happily pay it forward whenever I can.
apress 6y ago
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-intel-fortune-500-apple-tesla-amd/ https://fortune.com/longform/microchip-designer-jim-keller-i...
- JSeymourATL 6y ago
  @apress Love hearing these stories, thanks for sharing! BTW, great profile piece on Keller and impressive portfolio of articles on Fortune.
F00Fbug 6y ago
Easily in my top 10 list of books!

nateberkopec 6y ago

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. You can draw a very straight line from OODA to the Lean Startup.

WJW 6y ago
Indeed. The OODA loop model describes how you can win a competition by responding to a changing situation on the battlefield faster than your opponent. The Lean Startup describes basically the same thing but for civilian companies, and where the opponent is "the market" rather than a more well defined enemy. "The Art of Action" by Stephen Bungay is also a very good book on this subject.
- la6471 6y ago
  Unfortunately people bring this hyper competitive mentality in meetings and other situations where collaboration would be more beneficial than competition. I am specifically referring to the impulse some people have in making quick decisions without due diligence , just to stay in charge or for other ulterior motives. And when the majority acts like that more reasonable voices gets drowned in the din. While heathy competition is good we also need to be vigilant about not taking it too far to the point where we lose the way.
  - lb1lf 6y ago
    -At a former employer, we suddenly found ourselves with a fresh hire manager who subscribed wholeheartedly to the 'Move fast and break things' mindset. Additionally, he had a very strong urge to show everybody who had the last word. Only problem was, we built heavy machinery (Think low megawatt range) - so 'breaking a build' most often meant something blew up - in the quite literal sense. Took a little getting used to, that.
6y ago

cratermoon 6y ago

"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.

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peatmoss 6y ago

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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000sr4s

parkersweb 6y ago
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.

sodomak 6y ago

The OODA Loop in context of cryptoanarchy https://youtu.be/gTtbkguROdk?t=358 https://youtu.be/gTtbkguROdk?t=358

codeulike 6y ago

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

jmcalvay 6y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDhznBtN24 Chuck Spinney (as it relates to epistemology) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdK4y6O-llE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdK4y6O-llE Both - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWfbPoDuEwg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWfbPoDuEwg (they're from this meetup: https://52livingideas.com/ https://52livingideas.com/)
sooheon 6y ago
Great article, they've actually done the "analysis" and "synthesis" wrt the OODA loop, as opposed to Farnam Street's somewhat wide eyed adulation.

joosters 6y ago

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?

angry_octet 6y ago
What we can say is that, in the engagement scenarios we believe are likely, certain pilots are better than others. And by better I mean that the opponent dies. It is true that a computer will sometimes come up with stronger responses, even against strong human players, but it usually does this by choosing certain death for some of the pilots. While human pilots do accept certain death directions in combat (for example, to defend a high value asset like a trip transport), that still likely means that the planner failed. It's going to be interesting when we have robot planes; not only can they pull 10Gs for >10s, they can do it very quickly, and you can commit them to high risk engagements.
earthboundkid 6y ago
A lot of the discussion here is assuming that the US military is good at what it does, but we've been losing for twenty years to people who live without electricity, so either the Taliban has a lightning fast OODA loop or the concept is basically useless as applied.
- deleted 6y ago
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- rramadass 6y ago
  Guerrilla Warfare IS OODA/RPDM/Naturalistic Decision making/<insert any decision making acronym here> in action. All we are doing is emphasize on different stages and coming up with new acronyms. Decision Making is as old as mankind and the only constituents are flexibility in thinking, timing, delegation and action.
edrxty 6y ago
Ding ding ding! This thread is cargo culting hard. This is just a tool for making decisions in stressful situations buy forcing a separation of planning and acting so you don't flop around frantically. It's not a tool for organizations or your startup. Maybe it works for that but its applicability to you're startup should be proven independently.

glitchc 6y ago

OODA by itself is not useful unless a fighter pilot can do it quickly. Acquiring yomi (getting into the mind of the opponent) is far more useful for winning dogfights.

vz8 6y ago

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 https://asq.org/quality-resources/pdca-cycle

goliatone 6y ago
PDCA sounds to me like it would fit with the agile scrum cycle of plan, sprint, review and retro? I would not be surprised if scrum is just repackaging
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  I'm not sure Scrum is a repackaging, but it frustrates me that more people aren't familiar with the Deming-Shewart cycle (PDCA) which leads neatly into the Toyota Production System and Lean.

mellosouls 6y ago

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

dingosity 6y ago

As it turns out, John Boyd went to flight school w/ my dad and we saw quite a bit of him when they were both working on the F-15 program. I still literally have the scars. OODA by itself is simplistic, but it was part of a larger presentation called "Patterns of Conflict," and you should probably look at that presentation before deciding what OODA means. I found a printed copy from my dad's records that's not quite as long as the one I found online (and heck, maybe there are later versions available as well.) Anyway... it might be useful to read this to get an idea of the original context of the "OODA Loop." https://geekboss.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/patterns-of-conflict.pdf https://geekboss.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/patterns-of-... [I have no affiliation w/ geekboss. they were just the first hit when i searched "patterns of conflict presentation"] Also, here's "Destruction and Creation," which was more popular among staff officers I came in contact with. http://www.goalsys.com/books/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREATION.pdf http://www.goalsys.com/books/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREAT... There are a lot of "applying OODA to business" type blog posts and presentations. I'm not sure I'm qualified to evaluate their value, but for me, getting the extra context of what was going on in the Air Force in the early 70s into the 80s was useful in understanding the meaning and intent of what Boyd wrote about "OODA."

beaconstudios 6y ago

The OODA loop is just entry-level cybernetics; it describes a single (negative/balancing/homeostatic) feedback loop. Knowing OODA is a good start for learning about the mechanics of self correcting systems but for some reason cybernetics doesn't come up often in association with it. It's like learning how to code a todo list but not knowing that more advanced programs are possible because you're not aware that what you're doing is a small part of a whole field called "programming".

retrocryptid 6y ago
There's source material the FS blog isn't giving you. You probably want to read that before saying "OODA is just Cybernetics." Having read both Norbert Weiner and John Boyd, I can assure you there's more to it than what's presented by the fs.blog link. Though... yes... Cybernetics cut a swath through Systems Command in the 60s and 70s, but if you slog through dissertations at the Air War College, you'll find several critiques of Cybernetics for it's lack of descriptive power in an environment with incomplete information. See Lind's Manouver Warfare Handbook for more details.
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  Thanks, I'll check it out. For what it's worth I agree that cybernetics alone isn't as useful for describing complex systems as it is for designing adaptive processes like OODA. That's more the realm of systems dynamics and causal analysis.

7402 6y ago

"Gödel’s theorems, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics" Bah. It drives me crazy when people use scientific or mathematical principles as psychological metaphors, without understanding what the principles actually mean. They usually get it wrong. When you apply the Uncertainty Principle to a flying airplane, it implies the exact opposite of what the author thinks it does. A fighter jet is a macroscopic object. Assuming I recall my college physics correctly, if the velocity of the plane is "only" known to within a quintillionth of a m/s, then the position is "only" knowable within a few hundredths of a quintillionth of a meter.

thethimble 6y ago
Maybe better would have been "Bayesian Inference"?

karmakaze 6y ago

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

haggy 6y ago
That could be interesting. Update us on how it goes :D
- karmakaze 6y ago
  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).

KineticLensman 6y ago

Observe, Overreact, Deny, Apologise?

rootsudo 6y ago

As with many things in aviation, it's checklist, redundancy and training. Things go wrong with you skip one and become very expensive or deadly quick.

zoomablemind 6y ago

I agree with the points made here that OODA is just as good as any other mental technique acronym. The mental frameworks for decisionmaking under time constraint and information overload are inevitably too rational. Their main objective is to be able to act in progressively efficient manner. However simply relying on these frameworks as prescribed under the real constraints will lead to even higher information overload and thus loss of time. In fast-flowing situations human actions tend to follow the emotional reaction route, bypassing the the slower rational reasoning. Emotional route is faster, but success of such reaction depends heavily on the learned behavior. Closing your eyes to "hide" is obviously not going to help one to flee a danger. So, using any kind of mental framework is the most valuable in training. This helps transform the reasoned actions into learned behavior to be [hopefully] triggered as a reaction under the constraints.

pretendscholar 6y ago

>Although Boyd is regarded as a military strategist, he didn’t confine himself to any particular discipline. His theories encompass ideas drawn from various disciplines, including mathematical logic, biology, psychology, thermodynamics, game theory, anthropology, and physics. This guy is really setting off my bs radar. Godel's theorem, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, entropy, this is like gpt-reddit.

chriselles 6y ago

I’m a non-resident fellow at the Krulak Center for Creativity & Innovative, Marine Corps University. It wasn’t just fighter pilots, the United States Marine Corps were deeply influenced by John Boyd’s work and his body of work is held by MCU. Major Ian Brown has written a great book on John Boyd that is available free on PDF that is really quite good: https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/ANewConceptionOfWar.pdf?ver=2018-11-08-094859-167 https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/ANewConceptionOfWar.pdf?ve...

dangoljames 6y ago

Effing Brilliant.

dang 6y ago

I thought there were more past threads about this but the only significant ones I could find are The OODA Loop and the Half-Beat - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22601681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22601681 - March 2020 (31 comments) Ask HN: How do you apply Boyd's OODA Loop in your life? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16447690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16447690 - Feb 2018 (10 comments) John Boyd and the four qualities of victorious organizations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6669129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6669129 - Nov 2013 (29 comments)

vr46 6y ago

In the UK we have advanced motorcycle training that uses the IPSGA loop: * Information * Position * Speed * Gear * Acceleration Bikers are probably more prone to injury and death than your average fighter pilot, too.

rawgabbit 6y ago

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 thing to do is to minimize risk in case the info is true. Only if we are certain the info is real, should we perform a complete course correction.

rrmm 6y ago
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.

vncecartersknee 6y ago

Do you really need to pretend you're a fighter pilot to be productive at the office come on guys

Communitivity 6y ago

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_MR_Toward_a_Theory_of_Situation_Awareness_in_Dynamic_Systems_Human_Factors_Journal_371_32-64 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/210198492_Endsley_M... [2] https://militarydecisiongr.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/a-guide-to-the-mdmp.pdf https://militarydecisiongr.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/a-gui... [3] https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog-ws/view/100.ATSC/E4166A5D-0FE7-4780-916A-A7E9B227147C-1337689957702/adp5_0.pdf https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog-ws/view/100.ATSC/E4166A5D... [4] https://suntzusaid.com/ https://suntzusaid.com/ [5] http://books.ebooklibrary.org/members/worldebooklibrary/fivering.pdf http://books.ebooklibrary.org/members/worldebooklibrary/five...