Design Thinking and the OODA Loop Sketch

Mark A Hart, NPDP

Design Thinking and the OODA Loop SketchComparing Perspectives on Innovation and Winning

Outline• Design Thinking process model

• OODA Loop sketch approach

• Similarities in the models

• Differences in perspectives

• Building and employing snowmobiles

• Innovation and winning



Design ThinkingA formal method for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues, with the intent of an improved future result

Wikipedia

Design Thinking

Simplified process model for design thinking with iterative linkages between phases

Design Thinking

A detailed process model for Design Thinking (based on Thoring & Müller, 2011)

Design Thinking

Exclusive OR gateway(release the product?)

Design Thinking

Designer

MBA

Design Thinking

An approach to innovation,

not a guarantee

OODA Loop Sketch

Based on a 1995 sketch by John Boyd in “The Essence of Winning and Losing”

An OODA Cycle may occur in a moment

Two consecutive cycles

Three consecutive cycles

Four consecutive OODA cycles

Representing a competitive encounter

Win

Two series of OODA cycles that represent a competitive encounter

Win

A series of OODA cycles that represent an individual effort

Approaches that can be employed to shape a competitive win include:

•Discerning tactical dispositions•Detecting mismatches•Generating mismatches in time, tempo, or rhythm•Generating mismatches in ability•Novelty•Cheng/Ch’i•Shih and the node•Manipulating friction•Generating confusion for the adversary while promoting

harmony within your network

Approaches that can be employed to shape a group win include:

• Harmony

• Adaptability

• Cycle time

• Schwerpunkt

Similarities

Design Thinking Process

OODA Loop Sketch

Design Thinking

• May be executed as a sequential process that may have a duration from hours to years

• Following negative feedback, focus may be re-established

Contrasting Design Thinking and the OODA Loop

•A Design Thinking approach has biases for certain orientations and tools

•A Design Thinking approach tends to be prescriptive

•An OODA Loop approach embraces wider perspectives and requisite variety

• Experience• Problem to be solved• Job to be done

How will you recognize a win?

Preparation to recognize a win

In freshly fallen snow, my friends and I want to experience the exhilaration associated with being a fighter pilot

Analyses and Synthesis

Boyd’s thought experimentBoyd, The Strategic Game, 1987

Preparing for an informed analyses

People engaged in activities that are enabled by technologies

Analyses

Select one potentially valuable item from each activity then discard and forget the rest of each image

Skis

Handlebars

Treads

Motor

SynthesisTransformation and combination

In most cases, one analyses and synthesis effort is not enough for a win.

In most cases, one OODA cycle is not enough for a win.

“A loser is someone — individual or group — who cannot build snowmobiles when facing uncertainty and unpredictable change; Whereas,

A winner is someone — individual or group — who can build snowmobiles, and employ them in an appropriate fashion, when facing uncertainty and unpredictable change.”

Boyd, Revelation, 1987

To win, the emphasis is on the capability to build and employ products in an appropriate fashion when there are unknownsSnowmobile racer doing a jump image by Trevor MacInnis.

A winner is not required to be the inventor of a product or the first to market it

In 1917, Virgil D. White received a patent for "an attachment designed to convert a Model T into a 'Snowmobile,' a name coined and copyrighted by White" in 1913.Snowbird on display at the National Postal Museum. Images from http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/museum/1d_Snowbird.html

The interplay of building, employing, and evaluating produces innovation. Boyd concluded that a "continuing whirl of reorientation, mismatches, analyses/synthesis and the novelty" is a "conceptual spiral for... innovation."

Boyd, Conceptual Spiral, 1992

A Design Thinking approach:

•Pursues innovation efforts from a specific perspective

•Promotes specific processes

An OODA Loop Approach:

Strive to win with a “variety of possibilities as well as the rapidity to implement and shift among them”

Boyd, Patterns of Conflict, #176

Innovation can be confirmed by the building and employing snowmobiles in an appropriate fashion when facing uncertainty and unpredictable change

Individuals within networks that have this capability are innovators

An innovator is a winner — individual or network — who can build new products, and employ them in an appropriate fashion, when facing uncertainty and unpredictable change.

re-writing Boyd, Conceptual Spiral, 1992

Developing Winners: Assimilating the Insights Encapsulated in Boyd's OODA Loopwww.Developing-Winners.com

This presentation included extracts from:

Mark A Hart

www.OpLaunch.com

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Design Thinking and the OODA Loop SketchComparing Perspectives on Innovation and Winning 7 September 2014

Development Experience

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