DECISION INTELLIGENCE FRAMEWORKS: THE OODA LOOP & SEAL – CHAPTER 02

***Continued from Chapter 01 (Covered previously: Decision Intelligence and its meaning, The OODA Loop, How The OODA Loop Works: The Four Steps, Success Of The OODA Loop)

Link to Chapter 01:

DECISION INTELLIGENCE FRAMEWORKS: THE OODA LOOP & SEAL – CHAPTER 01

Uses Of The OODA Loop

In general, military planning models are often applied to uses outside of their original context due to their effectiveness in extreme situations. The OODA loop has been adapted to become an important concept in various fields such as business, game theory, information security, law enforcement, litigation, marketing and strategy. Professionals find this compelling because of its common-sense approach to decision-making and its emphasis on staying competitive.

With technology being used everywhere and more emphasis being placed on a company’s ability to collect feedback and analyze competition, this method is now a common approach applied in organizations. In business, OODA loops typically examine what is happening externally and how results are performing to become more agile. Similarly, an organization with a security operations centre (SOC), computer emergency readiness team (CERT) or computer security incident response team (CSIRT) may use an OODA loop cycle to develop an organization’s incident response plan.

Additionally, due to the growth of data analytics in business, the OODA loop is a popular method for handling an influx of constantly emerging information. Companies can achieve better situational awareness when they implement the observe and orient steps to organize data in a way that accurately depicts the business environment. Once the data is placed in context, they can make smarter organizational decisions and actions.

Examples Of The OODA Loop

In its simplest form, the OODA loop is employed by all individuals every day when making a decision.

More complex, higher-stakes versions of the OODA loop in everyday life can be seen when creating a retirement savings plan or buying a home.

Alternatives To The OODA Loop

A few ideas that can be combined with the OODA loop include:

Plan, do, check, act (PDCA) cycle- This is a model geared towards continuous improvement that is also broken into four parts. The process starts by identifying a problem and gathering relevant data to the cause of the problem. Then, this information is used to develop and implement a solution. The results are then confirmed, or checked, before documented and used to make recommendations for further PDCA cycles.

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis– This is a framework used in business to identify and analyze any internal or external factors that could affect the success of a project.

Getting things done (GTD) method– This is a time management model that helps organizations break larger projects into smaller, actionable tasks. The GTD method is a five step process that is also sometimes referred to by the steps: collect, process, organize, plan and do. All material should be gathered, analyzed and categorized before being transforming into an action plan that is then carried out.

Objectives and Key Results– OKRs are frequently set and evaluated continuously during the project lifecycle to make sure everything gets done on time. They also act as future references to monitor how well you executed your projects.

Porter’s Five Forces– Porter’s Five Forces is a model that identifies and analyzes five competitive forces that shape every industry and helps determine an industry’s weaknesses and strengths. Five Forces analysis is frequently used to identify an industry’s structure to determine corporate strategy and in decision making. 

SOAR Analysis– This is a framework for identifying Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results. It works in any business involved in any marketplace. Unlike some other frameworks, SOAR marries up fact finding about the company and position, alongside the desires of the stakeholders to aid better decision intelligence.

Decision Intelligence and Technology

During the recent decade, we saw a proliferation of data lake or data hub technologies. In spite of substantial innovations in dealing with three V’s of big data (Volume, Variety, and Velocity), we have yet to see any noticeable impact on the decision-action capability of organizations.

That does not imply that handling and managing data is unimportant for decision intelligence, however, we can safely conclude that it need not be the first step and some crucial piece is missing in crafting a decision intelligence system. A well-designed decision intelligence system is less dependent on data as one might think, as it can help make effective decisions even with limited data and can tolerate errors and inconsistencies as well as deal with high degrees of uncertainty.

Decision making being a cognitive function, we need a deeper understanding of it, so that we can better augment and support it by intelligent automation. Without this, it will be impossible to build an effective decision intelligence system. A decision intelligence system must be built around a sound decision making framework. Human and artificial agents can then collaborate following the structure and discipline of the framework.

The purpose and scope of decision intelligence automation is to implement artificial intelligence agents operating by the directives of a decision making framework. The least a framework does is to provide a structure and discipline without which an organization is bound to stay at the lowest level of decision intelligence maturity.

Decision Intelligence Frameworks Today

Early frameworks assumed that decision-making occurs at conscious level of processing guided by rational behavior. Today’s understanding of decision-making theories is much more nuanced:-

The SEAL Decision Model- Evolved specifically for designing human-machine collaborative decision intelligence systems, this stands for sense, explore, act, and learn. Though still transformational in nature, SEAL is designed to support and augment fundamental cognitive processes of human decision making rather than imposing on people to learn unfamiliar paradigms.

On first glance, SEAL may appear similar to OODA, since four elements of OODA can be loosely mapped to elements of SEAL as follows:

Human-Machine Collaboration In Decision Intelligence

The details under these elements are different because of the intent of SEAL to achieve a man machine symbiosis by reducing cognitive burden of decision makers and due to its continuous business optimization focus by explicit incorporation of feedback loops and learning. Some of these differences are:

Unlike Observe in OODA which is focused on sensing the current situation with the reactive intent, Sense in SEAL is proactive by design and predicts future situations that qualify as opportunities early so that organizations have ample time to become ready to react.

Sense agents may reveal multiple opportunities from the same snapshot of observation, thereby, requiring branching of subsequent activity to address them concurrently. Sense in SEAL requires active collaboration among human and machine agents as neither of them on their own can handle massive amount of data and make sense out of it.

Selected alternatives (similar to OODA hypotheses) move to the Action phase where actions are actually executed either manually or via a process automation substrate.

Learning happens at multiple levels – for adaption and fine tuning of predictive models and man-machine interaction. At a macro level, it is about understanding and improving the efficacy of action alternatives executed during ACT phase.

In summary, while OODA and SEAL are similar in emphasizing that a disciplined and facts based approach to decision making is essential for sustainable success in any endeavor, SEAL provides a comprehensive framework for implementing a human-machine decision intelligence system.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

DECISION INTELLIGENCE FRAMEWORKS: THE OODA LOOP & SEAL – CHAPTER 01

All of us, without exception, would love to tame the future and tilt odds in our favor all the time. This lofty aspiration and our incessant effort toward making right choices is what sets us apart from animal species. Decision making is a basic cognitive process of human behavior. Far from perfect, our prowess for decision making stands exposed more than ever in the hyper connected and rapidly changing world we live in.

Decision Intelligence: How can it help?

There is hardly any organization today that does not aspire to power their decisions and actions with intelligence. Enough evidence exists that those who can harness their organizational intelligence and align it to desired outcomes accrue a substantial advantage.

Over the decades of automation, significant strides have been made in codifying human experiential knowledge as well as extracting hidden knowledge from transactional data footprints.

The purview of decision intelligence is to explore outcome-focused and human-in-the-loop approaches to decision automation. A decision intelligence system is a man-machine collaborative system designed to enable and mature decision-action capability in an organization. A decision intelligence system plays a dual role:

The methodical design of a decision intelligence system must hinge around a framework — a mental model of decision making. The framework not only helps in defining scope and boundary of the system but determines the extent to which the system can be useful and in what situations.

A Story

In 1961, Col.  John Boyd wrote “Aerial Attack Study”, which spoke about the best dogfighting tactics. In dogfights (close-range aerial battles), fighter pilots need to move at high speeds, avoid enemies while tracking them and keeping a contextual knowledge of objectives, terrains, fuel and other variables. His OODA loop was a concept designed for rational thinking in such chaotic situations.

He said that ambiguity will always be there. Our inability to properly make sense of our changing reality is the bigger hindrance. When circumstances change, we often fail to shift our perspective and continue to try to see the world as we feel it should be. Most important thing is to orient – be connected to reality and act accordingly.

While this concept has been used extensively in corporates, sports and of course military outfits, it can also be used just as well by individuals for critical thinking & effective decision making to beat the competition.

The OODA Loop

The OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) is a four-step approach to decision-making that focuses on filtering available information, putting it in context and quickly making the most appropriate decision while also understanding that changes can be made as more data becomes available.

The strategy is applicable at an individual level as well as an organizational level. It is particularly useful in scenarios where competition is involved and where the ability to react to changing circumstances faster than an opponent leads to an advantage. Many modern environments can be described as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, or VUCA. Surviving and winning in this type of situation rests upon making better decisions. However, improving the quality of decision-making is something most organizations fail to do.

For example, if a company continues to make choices that do not see a positive return, they are failing to learn from their experiences. The OODA loop acknowledges this habit and provides an approach help make improvements.

OODA Loop Related Terminology

Before the OODA loop can be fully understood, a few related concepts need to be introduced which will aid in understanding it better:

1. Maneuver warfare– This is a strategy used in the military that emphasizes disrupting the enemy’s decision-making skills in order to defeat them. Maneuver warfare revolves around the ideas of surprise and deception. The concept of the OODA loop was derived from the strategy of maneuver warfare.
2. Mental models– These are representations or explanations of human behavior that exist on a personal, internal level. A person can generate a mental model to understand their thought processes, decisions and consequences. Mental models are a part of the orientation step of the OODA loop.
3. Situational awareness– This is the comprehension of all environmental stimuli. It involves perceiving all components of a situation, understanding what they mean and using them to make future judgements. Achieving situational awareness is crucial for most decision-making processes, including the OODA loop.
4. Reaction time– This refers to the time that elapses between a stimulus and the response given to that stimulus. A primary goal in the OODA loop is to minimize an individual or organization’s reaction time.

How The OODA Loop Works: The Four Steps

Similar to other problem-solving methods, the OODA loop is an interactive, iterative process that entails repeating the cycle, observing and measuring results, reviewing and revising the ­­initial decision and advancing to the next step. While the process is not always simple or linear, the four separate steps involved may be explained in organizational context or individual context as follows:

1. Observe: The first step is to identify the problem or threat and gain an overall understanding of the internal and external environment. In the corporate world, this can be equated to data gathering, where all information on the situation (organizational state, competitors, market, etc.,) is collected. The key point here is to recognize that the world is complex. All data is a snapshot in time and must be treated as such. Therefore, entities must gather whatever information is available as quickly as possible in order to be prepared to make decisions based on it.
2. Orient: This involves reflecting on what has been found during observations and considering what should be done next. It requires a significant level of situational awareness and understanding to make a conscious decision. Since some decisions are unconscious, or instinctual, this step involves considering what and why decisions are made prior to choosing a course of action. When applied on an individual level, this step can be done by creating mental models or mental rehearsal drills to place information into narratives that shape judgement. In organizational applications, situational models can be created with machine learning (ML) tools to identify potential outcomes while removing any bias.
3. Decide: This phase makes suggestions towards an action or response plan, taking into consideration all the potential outcomes. This can be accomplished through meetings or discussions that are focused around creating a roadmap for the entire organization.
4. Act: This pertains to carrying out the decision and related changes that need to be made in response to the decision. This step may also include any testing that is required before officially carrying out an action.

These phases have been broken out for the purposes of explanation, but in some real world scenarios they might happen in a fraction of a second. The four steps of the OODA Loop work together in a cycle.

Success Of the OODA Loop

Factor 01

One key to the success of the OODA loop is to make it as short as possible, minimizing reaction times in high-stakes situations. In the OODA loop’s simplest form, there is only one stimulus and one response, but that is not always the case. Hick’s Law can be applied to the reaction time of an OODA loop that has more than one stimulus or response, stating that when there are multiple options available in response to a stimulus, reaction time is slowed down.

Factor 02

The ability to make decisions faster than an opponent is important, but it is not only about speed. Tempo is also critical as the ability to rapidly speed up and slow down can generate unpredictability. Being unpredictable makes it difficult for opponents to understand and orientate themselves to what will happen next. Cycling through an OODA loop with more tempo than an opponent gives an organization more control of the environment and a better chance of succeeding.

***To be continued in Chapter 02 (Uses of the OODA Loop, Examples in Business, Alternatives, Decision Intelligence and Technology, Human-Machine Collaboration In Decision Intelligence)

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa