The OODA Loop: How military strategy can transform your product development process

In 1976, fighter pilot John Boyd mapped how humans make decisions under pressure. His OODA loop (observe-orient-decide-act) became legendary in military strategy.

But the same pattern drives most/all high-performing systems you've encountered — from Netflix crushing Blockbuster to your cleanest code solutions.

The pattern is simple:

• Observe: What's happening right now?
• Orient: What does this actually mean?
• Decide: What should I do about it?
• Act: Execute and learn from the results

Boyd discovered that all intelligent systems - whether biological, technological, or organizational - follow this same basic pattern when dealing with changing environments.

But, his breakthrough was recognizing the system that can complete this cycle faster and more accurately than its environment (including competitors) gains control.

This also clarifies your potential failure points. You can fail if:

1. You miss a step (Act without observing, or not act at all)
2. You are too slow to get feedback
3. You didn't improve accuracy with each step

Some real-world examples:

Netflix vs. Blockbuster

Netflix didn't just get lucky. They ran faster OODA loops:

While Blockbuster observed declining DVD sales and oriented around protecting store revenue, Netflix was already deciding to cannibalize their own DVD business and acting on streaming infrastructure.

Blockbuster optimized for yesterday's environment. Netflix adapted to tomorrow's.

Your code does this too

Every responsive application runs OODA loops:

• Observe user input and system state
• Orient by processing what changed
• Decide which code path to execute
• Act and return results

Faster cycles mean better performance. Slower cycles create lag and frustrated users.

Try this ASAP

Before starting your next feature or bug fix, walk through OODA explicitly:

1. What information are you starting with? (Observe)
2. How are you interpreting what's actually needed? (Orient)
3. What approach are you deciding to take? (Decide)
4. How will you implement and measure success? (Act)

The bigger picture

Once you see it, the pattern is everywhere. These are my favourite kinds of patterns. Every successful system — biological, technological, or organizational — is essentially an OODA loop optimized for its environment. Learning to identify these steps and improve them gives us a huge advantage in almost all areas of life.

What OODA patterns do you recognize in your work/life?

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Next Up: How to use AI to compress your OODA loop timing without sacrificing quality.