Ever heard of John R. Boyd? I hadn’t until I stumbled across this article in Fast Company magazine.
Observation, Orient, Decision, Action.
Instinctively it seems to make sense, Observing and understanding the pressure points, orienting your thinking to reflect the evolving situation, making resource deployment decisions to leverage the opportunities emerging, then executing on them, whilst going through the processes again, and again, as more information becomes available.
A variation on the Shewhart circle, which is now well known as the Plan Do Control Act (PDCA) circle in manufacturing, applied to competitive strategy with the wrinkle that the focus is not improving your own performance, but destroying the oppositions ability to compete effectively.
I have often said that getting inside your oppositions head is the best competitive statetgy you could have. The OODA loop is simply a template to organise and focus the process.
StrategyAudit 