OODA Loop: Bird vs. Cat

Whether you’re a fighter pilot or a COD Black Ops pro, the ability to make and perform decisions quickly is a skill that we value in a range of professions. John Boyd‘s OODA Loop theory helps explain how a person processes a situation and come to an effective decision.

Observe: Assess the situation by taking into account new information about the changing environment.

Orient: Focussing your attention onto what you have observed and understanding this new information.

Decide: Come to a decision of what you will do.

Act: Perform your decision.

Although John’s original theory stopped here after act, there is a fifth step in this process: Feedback. In this final stage, the individual learns from the consequences (or results) of their action and may use this new information to readjust and make changes to future actions.

This process looks like this.

2 thoughts on “OODA Loop: Bird vs. Cat

  1. Oh my giddy aunt Mara that is an amazing video! Do you own both of those animals?? Please please please use that again for other remediations or just memes in general. Specifically the lid opening and the bird being like well fck that and shutting it again. My only other comment would be that you could have spent more time on giving examples of the OODA loop or applications, rather than verbatim explanation of the theory. Like, Google can give us examples of what OODA looks like but only you can give examples of what your brain thinks about it, y’know? Just food for thought 🙂

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