Theory of Constraints Handbook - James Cox Iii [386]
Boyd himself provided the original, quintessential example of the fast-cycle OODA loop. As a U.S. Air Force fighter weapons instructor in the 1950s, he made a standing offer to all pilots: He would beat his opponent in 40 seconds or pay them $40. In eight years, no one was ever able to collect the $40 (Coram, 2002). The reason was that he was always able to execute what amounted to a near-instantaneous OODA cycle faster than any of his opponents could.3
Summarizing Boyd
Let’s quickly review what we’ve just covered.
The OODA loop describes a process of observing, synthesizing those observations (orientation), deciding what to do because of the synthesis, and acting on that decision.
Although all systems go through this OODA process, most are completely oblivious to the fact that they’re doing it.
The OODA loop was originally conceived as a way of mentally managing combat engagements to achieve victory, but its applicability in the development and deployment of strategy has yet to be fully realized.
The OODA loop appears, on the surface, to be reactive to changes in the environment; however, a deft practitioner can use it proactively to shape the environment or competitive arena to his or her own advantage.
The ability to cycle through the OODA loop multiple times while others do so only once can provide an insurmountable competitive advantage.
Armed with this knowledge of systems and the OODA loop, leaders can enjoy a substantive potential advantage over others (and the environment) in achieving their systems’ goals. However, this advantage remains exclusively potential without discrete tools with which to execute the OODA loop.
The Logical Thinking Process
Concepts such as the OODA loop are eminently useful but sometimes difficult to translate to practical application without some kind of tool to bridge the gap between the conceptual and the practical. Fortunately, the appropriate tool for applying the OODA loop strategically is readily available: The Logical Thinking Process (LTP).4
The LTP is an outgrowth of the evolution of TOC. Originally conceived as a production scheduling and management methodology called “Drum-Buffer-Rope” (Goldratt, 1990), in the late 1980s and early 1990s TOC outgrew its former production-oriented boundaries and spread into the broader category of systems. One of the first such forays was the thinking process. When it became obvious that resolving production bottlenecks alone didn’t always produce a more successful company, Goldratt needed another solution. He conceived the thinking process to address the application of his 5FS (Goldratt, 1990) when system-level constraints were not production bottlenecks—when the factor limiting overall system success lay in non-production areas.
This was a critical breakthrough because it raised the whole idea of constraint theory to a system concept, rather than just being a production methodology alone. The thinking process afforded a means to examine systems of any kind, not just production companies, and identify the one factor limiting the system the most in its mission to achieve its goal.
Originally composed of five logic trees or tools,5 the thinking process represented a simple application of the scientific method to the challenge of complex system problem solving: what’s the problem (what to change), what do we do about it (what to change to), and how do we do it (make the change happen)? For the first time, the thinking process offered a concise, direct way to logically analyze whole systems composed of myriad complex interactions and do so rapidly. Moreover, it also allowed for “hypothesis testing” without extensive real-world experimentation to verify the validity of proposed changes. In addition, what it also did that