Yi-Tan Tech Community Call 333: The OODA Loop

Yi-Tan Call: Summary Version

To help US fighter pilots win the Korean War in the air (and to help US fighter plane developers design fighters that weren’t inferior to their opponents), Air Force colonel John Boydinvented the OODA Loop: Observe, Orient, Decide and Act (more here and here).

Whoever gets through this loop the fastest wins. It’s called getting inside the opponent’s OODA Loop.

This turns out to be a useful analytic framework for assessing who’s ahead in business competition, too. Just think of Apple’s position in the tablet market today with the iPad.

Together, let’s discuss:

• What do OODA dynamics look like in business? Who is great at this?
• How can you use OODA to assess potential winners and losers?
• Where is this analytic approach most useful? At what stage in an industry is it apparent?