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Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
Start your day with intelligence. Get The OODA Daily Pulse.
Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
The greatest determinant of your success will be the quality of your decisions. We examine frameworks for understanding and reducing risk while enabling opportunities. Topics include Black Swans, Gray Rhinos, Foresight, Strategy, Stratigames, Business Intelligence and Intelligent Enterprises. Leadership in the modern age is also a key topic in this domain.
Members are also invited to discuss this topic at the OODA Member Forum on Slack.
Organizations in competitive environments should continually look for ways to gain advantage over their competitors. The ability of a business to learn and translate that learning into action, at speeds faster than others, is one of the most important competitive advantages you can have. This fact of business life is why the model of success in Air to Air combat articulated by former Air Force fighter pilot John Boyd, the Observe – Orient – Decide – Act (OODA) decision loop, is so relevant in business decision-making today. In this business model, decisions are based on observations of dynamic situations tempered with business context to drive decisions and actions. These actions should change the situation meaning new observations and new decisions and actions will follow. This all underscores the need for a good corporate intelligence program. See: A Practitioner’s View of Corporate Intelligence
This post dives into actionable recommendation on ways to optimize a corporate intelligence effort. It is based on a career serving large scale analytical efforts in the US Intelligence Community and in applying principles of intelligence in corporate America. See: Optimizing Corporate Intelligence
The study of mental models can improve your ability to make decisions and improve business outcomes. This post reviews the mental models we recommend all business and government decision makers master, especially those who must succeed in competitive environments. See: Mental Models for Leadership In The Modern Age
Cognitive Bias and the errors in judgement they produce are seen in every aspect of human decision-making, including in the business world. Companies that have a better understanding of these cognitive biases can optimize decision making at all levels of the organization, leading to better performance in the market. Companies that ignore the impact these biases have on corporate decision-making put themselves at unnecessary risk. This post by OODA Co-Founder Bob Gourley provides personal insights into key biases as well as mitigation strategies you can put in place right now. See: An Executive’s Guide To Cognitive Bias in Decision Making
We strongly encourage every company, large or small, to set aside dedicated time to focus on ways to improve your ability to understand the nature of the significantly changed risk environment we are all operating in today, and then assess how your organizational thinking should change. As an aid to assessing your corporate sensemaking abilities, this post summarizes OODA’s research and analysis into optimizing corporate intelligence for the modern age. See: OODA On Corporate Intelligence In The New Age
This post discusses standards in intelligence, a topic that can improve the quality of all corporate intelligence efforts and do so while reducing ambiguity in the information used to drive decisions and enhancing the ability of corporations to defend their most critical information. See: Useful Standards For Corporate Intelligence
Lessons from decades immersed in the world of geopolitical intelligence. With this post we reflect on some of the key lessons learned in seeking to optimize geopolitical intelligence analysis and reporting. See: The Art of Geopolitical Intelligence
John Boyd studied. He studied fighter pilot tactics, studied aeronautical engineering, studied bureaucrats and how to avoid their traps, studied evolution and biology, and studied history. And Boyd synthesized in a way that only a real practitioner of war could to produce a briefing called Patterns of Conflict that is still having a big impact on the world today. A full copy of the briefing is linked here. This post summarizes some key points worth reflecting on as the world views and reacts to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. See: Boyd on Patterns of Conflict
In this article Matt Devost and Bob Gourley provide practitioner’s context on a concept near and dear to our heart, the OODA Loop. In doing so we capture why this concept is so relevant to any competitive situation, including business and cybersecurity. The OODA Loop is an approach to decision-making developed by retired Air Force Colonel John Boyd based on his decades of experience as a pilot and extensive study of the greatest battles in history. See: The OODA Loop Explained: The real story about the ultimate model for decision-making in competitive environments
Broadly speaking, a weapon is anything that provides an advantage over an adversary. In this context, data is, and always has been, a weapon. This post, part of our Intelligent Enterprise series, focuses on how to take more proactive action in use of data as a weapon. See: Data is a Weapon
The best business leaders are good at spotting falsehoods. Some joke and say the have a “bullshit detector”, but that humorous description does not do service to the way great leaders detect falsehoods. Bullshit is easy to detect. You see it and smell it and if you step in it it is your own fault. In the modern world falsehoods are far more nuanced. Now more than ever, business and government leaders need to ensure their mental models for detecting falsehood are operating in peak condition. For more see: Fine Tuning Your Falsehood Detector: Time to update the models you use to screen for deception, dishonesty, corruption, fraud and falsity
Scenario planning is an often overlooked aspect of corporate decision-making. But it is needed now more than ever. Scenario planning is a methodology for helping leaders think through alternative futures in a way that enables identification of issues. It raises potential outcomes and impacts and helps conceptualize potential risks and opportunities so organizations can be better prepared. For more see: Scenario Planning for Strategic Decision-making
Now more than ever, organizations need to apply rigorous thought to business risks and opportunities. In doing so it is useful to understand the concepts embodied in the terms Black Swan and Gray Rhino. For more see: Potential Future Opportunities, Risks and Mitigation Strategies in the Age of Continuous Crisis
Something is different in the geopolitical situation today. The reasons are probably a combination of factors that include the pandemic, the rise of the global grid of cyberspace, plus the payoff of years of planning and strategic moves by our adversaries. But whatever the reasons, the world today is more complicated and more dangerous than the world of just a year ago, and in many cases the risks being faced by open societies have never been seen before. The changes are so significant, OODA recommends all business leaders take stock of the geopolitical situation and assess how the nature of these changes should impact your business strategy.
“The world is a more dangerous and complicated place than it was just a year ago. Your corporate strategy and defensive posture needs to reflect that”
See: C-Suite Considerations Regarding Current Geopolitical Tensions
Our thesis is that America’s most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure. This is also the most attacked and least defended. In short, our most important infrastructure is also our most neglected infrastructure. We recognize that most all of our members are deeply experienced in the matters we are exploring in this series and we would welcome your feedback/comments and suggestions. We would also encourage you to use this information to shape your personal approach to decision-making as well as the approach in your business or organization. For more see: America’s Most Critical Infrastructure is also Our Most Neglected Infrastructure
The nation’s cognitive infrastructure includes the mental capacities of our citizens and the decision-making ability of people, organizations and our government. It also includes the information channels used to feed our decision-making capabilities and the education and training systems used to prepare people and organizations for critical thinking. Our cognitive infrastructure is threatened in ways few of us ever imagined just a few years ago. Old style propaganda has been modernized and is now being aided by advanced technologies and new information dissemination methods. It is pretty clear that our cognitive infrastructure deserves to be treated with the respect of our other critical infrastructures. Just like the other sectors, the government can have a huge role in protecting it. See: Mitigating Risks To America’s Cognitive Infrastructure
Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence
Informing your decisions with actionable intelligence