Dr. Terry Barnhart, the Senior Director Strategy and Continuous Improvement at Pfizer Global R&D discusses the OODA Loop in this Business901 Podcast. This is a transcription of the Podcast.
We expand this theory into some practical applications and using the OODA Loop in and outside of rapid deployment. Dr. Barnhart has an upcoming book due out at the end of the year on using Lean in Product Development. It will be published by Productivity Press.
Terry added a point in a later conversation about isolation that I thought was an excellent adder after you read the bonus material at the end of the eBook.
If you think, even for a moment, about isolation in companies, you see it EVERYWHERE. The corner office is a deliberate form of isolation. Offices are isolationist to the extent that people use them. Going to the Gemba, however, restarts observation. Those observations are never quite what we expect, hence we immediately begin the process of orientation change. The most interesting fellow I have heard about was Soichiro Honda, who would walk around his plants in Honda whites, and talk to people, pick up trash on the floor, etc. Many people did not know what he looked like, so he would often get raw views of how his company operated. He had no separation between himself and his company, hence it was difficult to blind him to the barriers and opportunities present.
Dr. Barnhart will also presenting a short course for Management Round Table on Lean in R&D, which will include a lot of Boyd theory, including the OODA loop and beyond, in Cambridge MA on November 3&4. Go to www.roundtable.com.
Related Podcast: Applying the OODA Loop to Lean
Recommended Reading:
Frans Osinga, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (Strategy and History)
Chet Richards, Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business
Related Information:
Phooey on the need for Management Support in a Lean Transformation
The Strategy of the Fighter Pilot Revisited
Creating Flow with Don Reinertsen
Key Marketing Concepts from the Korean War
If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts!
Boyd’s Law of Iteration: Speed beats Quality :
Iterative Process Gaining Steam – Proof it works :