(2023-04-24) Jackson R/T 009 Always Be Snowmobiling

Chris Jackson: R/T 009 - Always be Snowmobiling. What happens when you receive a piece of information that jars against your existing knowledge, experience or values?

how you can use John Boyd's work to apply creativity in addressing the challenges you might be facing

Often sold as a decision-making model, the OODA loop is really a model of human cognition.

The OODA loop is split into four phases - The 'Observe' phase is the first step in the OODA loop. It involves collecting data and information about the unfolding situation that concerns us. In this phase, it is important to pay attention to details and identify emerging patterns or trends.

There are multiple routes through the four phases of the OODA loop, and to simplify them as four words contradicts the richness the model holds (although I do admit how the more complex model is pretty hard on the eyes by modern design standards). It can also be preferable to start in different phases of OODA, depending on the challenge. In other cases, the connections and pathways between phases should be the main focus of attention.

many misread the purpose of the loop as to cycle through it faster than opponents to win. This is another misunderstanding. Boyd only referred to the 'opponent's OODA loops'. In this reference, he speaks to the aim of getting inside their decision-making ability, causing confusion and sowing disharmony. This could be done by speed, cadence changes, and surprise manoeuvres, which he called 'fast transients'.

It should be noted that OODA loops are both fractal and can happen at different scales and times.

Passing through all phases of an OODA loop may happen over a longer time when launching a new product or service and examining how competitors and customers react. Through the product development process, team members would also be experiencing the OODA loop hundreds of times in different contexts in their daily operations. (Quadruple-Loop Product Management)

Boyd's theory was that soldiers and armies (later businesses, and organisations) must constantly examine their environment from different perspectives and use this to create novelty to succeed in a complex and uncertain environment.

Through this constant engagement with the world, we encounter mismatches in our experience that confuse us. In each case, we must make sense of our observations and the information at hand and reconfigure this into new models to address the mismatch. Once we have done this, we empirically test this new hypothesis and start the process again. (cf cognitive dissonance)

Boyd explained this process as The Conceptual Spiral:
Since survival and growth are directly connected with the uncertain, ever-changing, unpredictable world of winning and losing, we will exploit this whirling (conceptual) spiral of orientation, mismatches, analyses/synthesis, reorientation, mismatches, analyses/synthesis … so that we can comprehend, cope with, and shape, as well as be shaped by that world and the novelty that arises out of it.

A Snowmobile is an analogy Boyd uses to explain the analysis and synthesis of information. In the briefing for 'The Strategic Game of "? and ?" Boyd asks participants to imagine themselves in different situations: alpine skiing; piloting a boat; riding a bicycle; playing with a children's toy tank. He then asks them to imagine that they keep pieces from each situation: skis, an outboard motor, handlebars and tank treads.
Combine these, and what do you have?

A winner is someone (individual or group) that can build snowmobiles, and employ them in an appropriate fashion, when facing uncertainty and unpredictable change.

The next time you engage in a familiar activity, use the OODA loop to break it down. Then identify the last time you experienced a conceptual mismatch.