PreparationThe OODA Loop was devised by United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd. Originally designed for fighter pilots, it has broad application to sport, business, medicine, and leadership. OODA stands for Observe-Orient-Decide-Act. So remember to:
- Observe the situation, seeing it as accurately and realistically as possible. This is often called situational awareness.
- Orient yourself by looking for any cognitive biases, shortcuts, or barriers to clear thinking and objective evaluation. Orientation involves using multiple mental models as well as creating new ones to address novel problems.
- Decide to act. If you've taken the appropriate time to observe and orient, the decision falls into place. Poor decisions arise from skipping one or both of the previous steps. To borrow from the scientific method, this is forming a hypothesis as to what will work.
- Act Continuing the science analogy, action involves testing the hypothesis.
The key to victory is not just faster decisions, but better decisions. Taking control of the situation, rather than reacting to it, provides the upper hand. Likewise, disrupting your opponent's OODA loop can also lead to victory. While this is a vastly simplified explanation of the OODA loop, I encourage you to start applying it while learning more about it.