The OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act) is a decision-making model developed by

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

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

As can be seen from the diagram, the OODA loop includes continuous collection of feedback and observations. This enables late commitment, which is an important element of agility. This is in contrast to the PDCA (plan–do–check–act) cycle which requires early commitment.

Use in law and business

The OODA loop has become an important concept in litigation, business,

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...

, management education,

military strategy Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired Strategic goal (military), strategic goals. Derived from the Greek language, Greek word ''strategos'', the term strategy, when first used during the 18th ...

and cyber security, and

cyberwarfare Cyberwarfare is the use of cyberattack, cyber attacks against an enemy State (polity), state, causing comparable harm to actual warfare and/or disrupting vital computer systems. Some intended outcomes could be espionage, sabotage, propaganda, ...

. According to Boyd,

decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...

occurs in an 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. Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. (stylized as JPMorganChase) is an American multinational financial services, finance corporation headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. It is List of largest banks in the United States, the largest ba ...

, has said he uses the OODA loop in scenario evaluation.

Criticism

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."

References

Bibliography

* * * A supposed five-slide set by Boyd. * * * *
PDF of the dissertation version
* * * *

External links

The John Boyd Library
(archived documents by Boyd) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ooda Loop Feedback Intelligence analysis Management cybernetics Strategy Systems analysis United States Air Force