
John Boyd and the four qualities of victorious organizations - smacktoward
http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/how-winners-win-john-boyd-and-the-four-qualities-of-victorious-organizations/
======
moron4hire
I've been a student of the concept of the OODA loop for about 6 or 7 years
now. I've found that it shows up in different names all over every where. John
Cleese talked about it many years ago "how to avoid being uncreative"
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9rtmxJrKwc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9rtmxJrKwc)),
his "open mode" thinking is the Observing, his "closed mode" is the Orienting,
etc. Elle Luna talked about it recently, too
([http://elleluna.com/post/57362799018/what-advice-would-
you-g...](http://elleluna.com/post/57362799018/what-advice-would-you-give-on-
finding-inspiration-to)), "divergent vs. convergent thinking" and where you go
from there. It's what Scrum is all about.

I think what is really interesting about Boyd's formulation is that you can
also use it as a diagnostic tool if you're having problems. There are various
pathologies that appear if you drop one of the letters of OODA and still try
to make work out of it. A lot of small startups get stuck in DA loops: they
fail to come out for air every once in a while to Observe what is going on in
the world and Orient themselves to that situation. A lot of big corporations
get stuck in OO loops: they spend tons on meetings, on status reports, on
market analysis, but decisions never get made and nobody has the authority to
take any action.

By studying each of the pieces, how well you are doing in each, and how
streamlined they are, you get a very good idea of how well you are executing
work.

It's also very interesting that OODA is a fractal strategy. You have OODA
loops inside of OODA loops. You can have a yearly OODA loop (project) with
monthly OODA loops inside of it (sprints), and daily OODA loops inside of that
(stand-ups and day-to-day operations).

~~~
dragonwriter
> I've been a student of the concept of the OODA loop for about 6 or 7 years
> now. I've found that it shows up in different names all over every where.

OODA is essentially just another name for the scientific method, so its not
really that surprising that it shows up under different names all over
everywhere.

(Note: that I'm not intending to minimize the value of OODA by pointing out
that it is just another name for the scientific method -- successfully
explaining the scientific method in terms that get people to understand it and
apply it effectively in specific domains -- particularly ones that have
strong, established cultures that resist adaptation, is a significant
accomplishment.)

> It's what Scrum is all about.

Well, its what Agile (and perhaps more to the point, Lean) is all about; Scrum
is a tightly defined set of processes that comes with the caveat that if you
aren't doing this exact set of processes as described, you aren't doing Scrum,
and as such its somewhat in tension with OODA.

~~~
shloky
Kind of disagree with the first part. But only from a perspective stand point.
(Top of the structure vs half way up.)

Basically, I contend that OODA is probably the best model of human cognition -
how humans capture and process information into behavior. All behavior.

The scientific method is just one application of OODA. One designed to answer
questions.

~~~
dpritchett
Right, I don't think the scientific method captures the competitive timing
aspects of the wider OODA framework.

------
TDL
Frans Osinga's book would be more insightful for anyone who was interested in
this article. There is a small cottage industry that has grown around Boyd's
work (every year there is a conference dedicated to his ideas held at Quantico
every year.)

[http://www.amazon.com/Science-Strategy-War-Strategic-
History...](http://www.amazon.com/Science-Strategy-War-Strategic-
History/dp/0415459524/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383582732&sr=1-1)

~~~
spitfire
The Osinga book is available free as a PDF. But if you do pay for it, it's
worth every penny.

[http://opmexperts.com/OsingaBoydThesis.pdf](http://opmexperts.com/OsingaBoydThesis.pdf)

~~~
ergest
I'm making my way through this book now. It's very rough terrain since the
book was a PhD thesis, but it's really the best in-depth look at Boyd's work,
of which I am a big fan!

~~~
spitfire
It isn't an easy read. It took me two readings and about 6 months to really
start to crack the depth of the ideas.

Many people come away with only the shallow surface message and end up worse
off for it. (Also acts as a nice filter)

------
dantheman
Here are some notes I took on Certain to Win by Chet Richards. I highly
recommend it, it translates boyd's strategy to business.

[http://www.blog.dannygagne.com/archives/610](http://www.blog.dannygagne.com/archives/610)

------
MattRogish
Boyd more or less invented the "OODA Loop"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop)

~~~
ucee_054
No, it was Bode who invented it

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Wade_Bode](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Wade_Bode)

By the way, its true name is "negative feedback control".

~~~
truthlaidbear
> By the way, its true name is "negative feedback control".

No. That's like saying a car's true name is muffler.

Bode along with Harold Black, Harry Nyquist, all contributed parts to control
theory while at Bell.

Boyd incorporated their work to formulate OODA, which is a distinct thing and
very much his invention.

~~~
ArbitraryLimits
Yeah, this is one of my pet peeves. "Feedback" originally had a quite
technical meaning that it more or less lost once it became a buzzword in the
50s, in much the same way that "object oriented" lost its meaning in the 89s.

The really important thing about "feedback control" as developed by Black,
Nyquist, et al. wasn't that they realized it's a good idea to check to see
whether your plan is actually achieving its goal, and correct if it's not.
That's just common sense, after all (although the usual disclaimer about
common sense being uncommon applies).

The real technical contribution of "feedback control" is that true feedback,
in the sense of a dynamic system, can control a system without having to build
a model of it. I.e. if your control system is fast enough relative to the
system it's controlling, it doesn't have to _predict_ anything, it can just
_react_.

Which, if you think about it, is really the _opposite_ of what people usually
mean when they say your manager gives you feedback in your performance review,
customers give you feedback on your product, etc. When you get that kind of
feedback, you still have to figure out what it means in order to do anything
with it.

------
tcopeland
Several books on Boyd show up on various military reading lists
([http://militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com/search?keywords=...](http://militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com/search?keywords=boyd)),
including the one by Robert Coram that's referenced in the post.

------
Matti
It's too bad that the longer audio recordings of Boyd's briefings that exist
are stuck in some military or private archive. (I'm not talking about the
stuff that's currently available on Youtube.)

~~~
hvass
How do you have this info? Any chance of those becoming public?

~~~
Matti
Last year someone mentioned an 8 hour recording of Patterns and Conflict that
was apparently distributed among some of the participants of Boyd and Beyond
2012. Googling the write-ups of that event should give you more information on
which archive the audio recording should be located in (at the Marine Corps
museum?).

~~~
hvass
Awesome, thank you.

