OODA loop

The OODA loop is a decision-making concept that was developed for US military use but applies to many everyday decisions as well. OODA is an acronym that stands for observe, orient, decide, and act. Each term refers to a step in the process of analyzing a situation and moving to take action. In this respect, OODA can also be considered a strategy for taking action.

Background

Air Force colonel and military strategist John Boyd is credited with formalizing the OODA loop. Boyd was an accomplished fighter pilot known for his ability to quickly shoot down an enemy during a dogfight—a one-on-one air combat scenario. He served in World War II (1939–1945), the Korean War (1950–1953), and the Vietnam War (1954–1975).

Following his retirement from the military, Boyd began studying a variety of topics and developing an understanding of how people make decisions. His goal was to help streamline the decision-making process for high-stakes military maneuvers such as dogfights. In turn, this would improve the likelihood of victory and the safe return of the personnel involved. The result of his study was the OODA loop. While Boyd is responsible for a number of other innovations, the OODA loop is the one with the most practical everyday implications.

The OODA loop addresses the way people react when faced with a stimulus. This can be something as simple as hearing a phone ringing or more complicated such as the way pilots respond during combat. It involves the reaction time, or the time it takes to move from the initiation of a stimulus to the response to it. For instance, a person walking down the street hears a horn honk. This is the stimulus. The person needs to take in the situation around them and decide whether they need to jump out of the way of a moving car. The time from hearing the horn to jumping out of the way would be the reaction time. Reaction time is affected by a number of factors, including whether the stimulus is something seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted; whether the stimulus is familiar or new; and the condition of the person subjected to the stimulus.

Overview

The OODA loop is a way of defining the decision process that people usually use instinctively when encountered with some form of a stimulus that requires a response. The normal response would be to observe what had happened, orient to the situation by assessing what other factors might affect the situation, decide on the best course of action based on the observations and orientation, and then take action. As a result, the OODA loop is a concept for understanding the decision-making process and a framework for understanding how to improve it.

The process happens instinctively but is affected by a number of factors. Observation is a subjective process that is influenced by such things as the person’s personal and cultural background, the person’s physical and mental condition while making the observations, and the person’s capacity to analyze the information presented. This includes the way and the speed at which the information is presented and the person’s familiarity with what is happening. For instance, a person who has been driving for decades is likely to respond differently if the car begins to slide on a wet road than someone who is experiencing that type of sliding for the first time.

Boyd believed that understanding how decisions are made and the factors that affect them could lead to improvements in the decision-making process in many scenarios. His initial focus was on helping fighter pilots win their conflicts even if they were outmatched by the other pilot’s plane. This can be done in two ways: by improving one’s own decision-making and by understanding how the other person made their decisions. In military terms, this is known as getting inside the other person’s OODA loop.

Understanding the OODA loop and implementing this understanding can provide a number of key advantages for the decision-maker. It can help people to respond quicker and make faster decisions, which can be critical in high-risk situations. This concept is behind many of the training exercises used for law enforcement, military personnel, pilots, first responders, and medical professionals. Studies have shown that people respond more quickly and accurately to stimuli with which they are familiar. Therefore, exposing people during training to all of the scenarios they might face in real-life situations enables them to more quickly recognize the stimulus. They can then identify the observations that are most important and those that can be ignored, and form a more accurate decision on how to act. At that point, they can take action with confidence.

This process can be vitally important when people are in high-intensity situations. A strategy for dealing with the decisions that need to be made can make the difference between life or death. This can be further enhanced if the person facing the situation can also anticipate how another person in the situation might react. For example, a trained and experienced first responder who is attempting to save a drowning person will consider not only their OODA loop but also the decision making process of the person they are attempting to save. This might help him to realize that a drowning person might identify the rescuer as a source of safety and grab on tightly, which could put both of them in jeopardy. Knowing this, the first responder can take steps to calm the person and provide a flotation device or other object for the person to grab instead.

Understanding how the OODA loop affects decisions has practical every day applications as well. Simply recognizing that there are different steps to a process can lead to calculated decision making where time is an option. In these situations, spending extra time observing and analyzing observations can help prevent jumping to conclusions. It can also be used in advance of some scenarios to help prepare for various stimuli and develop a plan for response. For example, an employee who works a cash register might imagine various problems that could arise, such as an armed attacker. By mentally rehearsing a stimulus and applying the OODA loop from both their perspective and that of the attacker, the person can increase the likelihood of taking the best course of action in a real scenario.

Bibliography

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