I tried not to talk too fast, but it wasn’t working. A senior VP engaged me on the topic of leadership, and I knew I didn’t have a lot of time for discussion.

It started with me asking if I could give feedback on his message at an all-hands meeting. He agreed, and I sent off my feedback…which included a plea to never (ever) use his “baseball bat in a bar fight” analogy again. It didn’t resonate with our culture. At. All. How was this going to go over?

My eyes widened when I read the IM: Where do you sit? I’d like to chat. Yikes, right from the SVP. How can this be good?

Lucky for me no baseball bats were involved, just an interesting discussion on leadership and approaches to business. I presented the two pillars of empowerment from L. David Marquet’s book, Turn the Ship Around. Knowing that the SVP I was talking to had been in Army Intelligence, I noted the author developed his approach to leadership while captain of a Navy nuclear submarine.

The SVP then mentioned OODA loops, and when I acknowledge I had read an article on the topic, his eyes lit up. As we were leaving the conference room where we were talking he said he was going to send me information on maneuver warfare, which describes the OODA loop. At that moment I realized I had given him the mistaken impression that I was a military and/or warfare buff. Before I could set the story straight his long strides had taken him out of earshot.

And now I was on the hook for reading a book on warfare strategy. (great.)

In my inbox appeared the Introduction and first three chapters of Maneuver Warfare Handbook by William S. Lind. To my surprise, the history of the Boyd Cycle, also known as “OODA loop” was interesting and informative. The background filled in context from the one article I read on using OODA loops in business.

Maneuver Warfare and OODA Loops

I’ll give a quick summary of the origins of the Boyd Cycle/OODA loop, from the Maneuver Warfare Handbook. Colonel John Boyd, a retired Air Force colonel and fighter pilot studied what made for successful battles, starting with air-to-air combat in the Korea war. Why were American pilots able to achieve a 10:1 kill ratio over their opponents, even though the MIG-15 fighter planes performed better than the F-86 in individual actions like turning, climbing, and accelerating?

There were two qualities of the American planes that proved invaluable. First, the bubble canopy of the F-86 allowed the pilot to see more of their surroundings than the canopy of the MIG. Second, the hydraulic controls of the F-86 allowed the plane to “transition from one action to another much more quickly than the MIG.” (p. 5)

Colonel Boyd expanded his research to ground combat and found that successful campaigns had similar characteristics as those of the American pilots in Korea.

“Conflict can be seen as time-competitive observation-orientation-decision-action cycles” [OODA loops]

Manuever Warfare Handbook, William Lind, p. 5
  • Observe: Observe the physical surroundings and the enemy
  • Orient: Make a mental image of the situation
  • Decision: Based on orienting, make a decision
  • Act: Act on the decision
  • [repeat the cycle]

The “time-competitive” aspect means that if one side of the conflict can execute the loop faster consistently, they will likely be the victor. The side slower to execute the Boyd Cycle tends to panic, become passive, and make inappropriate moves and decisions. You can imagine how this makes for victory in combat.

Agile Manifesto

Another surprise was that in reading the first three chapter of Maneuver Warfare Handbook, I found quite a few similarities to Agile development. Yep. Let’s’ start with the agile manifesto, quoted here in its entirety.

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working software over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Kent Beck Mike Beedle Arie van Bennekum Alistair Cockburn Ward Cunningham Martin Fowler James Grenning Jim Highsmith Andrew Hunt Ron Jeffries Jon Kern Brian Marick Robert C. Martin Steve Mellor Ken Schwaber Jeff Sutherland Dave Thomas

© 2001, the above authors this declaration may be freely copied in any form, but only in its entirety through this notice.

Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto

We follow these principles:

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

Build projects around motivated individuals.

Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

Working software is the primary measure of progress.

Agile processes promote sustainable development.

The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Next

In the next post I’ll make a case for how aspects of maneuver warfare and agile development are similar!

tl;dr

OODA loops are Observe-Orient-Decide-Act cycles first documented as maneuver warfare strategy, and later applied to business. Agile Manifesto is a document describing an approach to developing software, where individuals and interactions are valued more than processes and tools, working software is valued more than comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration is valued more than contract negotiation, and responding to change is valued more than following a plan.

I’ve introduced these concepts in this article and will detail the similarities (yep, there are many!) between maneuver warfare and the agile approach to development in the next post.

engineer your life

  • Keep an open mind to new ideas, as you never know what you might learn. I never would have read a book entitled Maneuver Warfare Handbook, which is geared towards Marines. (And to be honest I only read the three chapters given to me, but it was enough to learn a bit about the concepts.)
  • Ask if you can give feedback before giving feedback. Especially if you muster the courage to take an executive to task for using a really (really) bad metaphor.

references

Turn the Ship Around: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders, L. David Marquet, 2012

Manuever Warfare Handbook, William S. Lind, 1985

Agile Manifesto and Agile Principles quoted from https://agilemanifesto.org/, accessed February 8, 2020

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash