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Decision Making<\/a> is critical for every business.\u00a0 Military strategists apply their training and experience to devise battle plans and make quick decisions aimed at achieving specific objectives.\u00a0 Military strategies, concepts, and practices have found widespread application in businesses as well as everyday life.\u00a0 Writings, memoirs, and experiences of famous military historians and strategists\u2014such as Sun Tzu\u2019s \u201cThe Art of War,\u201d Clausewitz\u2019s \u201cOn War,\u201d and Liddell Hart\u2019s \u201cStrategy\u201d\u2014have been well-regarded in the business world and are being applied by business leaders across the globe to this day.<\/p>\n In the commercial arena, many businesses have successfully captured markets, contested with opponents, and accomplished strategic goals by applying military strategies.\u00a0 Unity of command, planning, effective communication<\/a>, Decision Making, mutual understanding, and coordination are essential in the military as well as in business.<\/p>\n Colonel John R. Boyd was a US Air Force fighter pilot and a renowned military strategist, whose theories and writings have attracted widespread adoption in the military as well as the business world. \u00a0<\/strong>Boyd served at the Pentagon and performed mathematical analysis to support the F-15 Eagle program.\u00a0 He, along with Thomas Christie, a mathematician, created the Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) theory of aerial combat, which became the gold standard for fighter aircraft design. \u00a0He also made significant contributions to the development of a lightweight aircraft (later known as the F-16).<\/p>\n The OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), or Boyd\u2019s Decision Cycle<\/a>, is considered Colonel Boyd\u2019s most renowned theory.\u00a0 It’s a tool that military forces use to plan and execute strategic decisions<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the business realm, the OODA Loop is a process by which an individual or an organization reacts to an event and makes timely decisions. \u00a0The model constitutes a 4-step decision loop:<\/p>\n The OODA Loop delivers a number of benefits to the entities implementing it. \u00a0For example, the theory:<\/p>\n Ill-planning, lack of practice, and incorrect execution of the OODA Loop results in certain drawbacks:<\/p>\n Let\u2019s dive deeper into the first two stages of the OODA Loop.<\/p>\n The foremost step in the OODA Loop necessitates gathering data, carefully ascertaining the threat or problem, and comprehending the organizational and external circumstances.<\/p>\n Observations impact decisions.\u00a0 If the first step of the OODA Loop is flawed, it leads to a flawed decision and, subsequently, a flawed action. \u00a0The Observation step warrants collecting all information relevant to the existing organizational state, competitors, and market to accurately discern the unfolding circumstances. \u00a0\u00a0This is critical since, while speed is important, improving your analytical skills and being able to see what’s really happening are even more important before making a decision.<\/p>\n The “Orientation” phase of the OODA Loop involves gathering information, analyzing it, and developing a comprehensive understanding of the situation.\u00a0 The stage involves reflecting on what has been found during observations and considering what should be done next.<\/p>\n In this stage, we try to create a mental model of the environment or problem, taking into account our past experiences and biases.<\/p>\n Interested in learning more about the other steps or stages of the OODA Loop? You can download an editable PowerPoint presentation on the OODA Loop here <\/a>on the\u00a0Flevy documents marketplace<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the\u00a0FlevyPro Library<\/a>.\u00a0FlevyPro<\/a>\u00a0is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.<\/p>\n For even more best practices available on Flevy, have a look at our top 100 lists:<\/p>\n Decision Making is critical for every business.\u00a0 Military strategists apply their training and experience to devise battle plans and make quick decisions aimed at achieving specific objectives.\u00a0 Military strategies, concepts, and practices have found widespread application in businesses as well as everyday life.\u00a0 Writings, memoirs, and experiences of famous military historians and strategists\u2014such as Sun… The OODA Loop<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":12744,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[408,81],"tags":[2878,3155,1136,3156,2,57,2556,388,2197],"class_list":["post-12710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management-leadership","category-strategy","tag-analysis","tag-boyd-decision-cycle","tag-decision-making","tag-hypothesis-development","tag-innovation","tag-ooda-loop","tag-planning","tag-strategy-2","tag-swot-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12710"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12748,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12710\/revisions\/12748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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Stage 1: Observe <\/strong><\/h2>\n
Stage 2: Orient <\/strong><\/h2>\n
Do You Find Value in This Framework?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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