One Loop or Two?
I've written previously about the effective application of the OODA loop to legal operations, and also where it doesn't apply. While it is a very...
3 min read
Mike Tobias
:
May 23, 2024 8:00:31 AM
I had the good fortune to attend a session at Alternative Events’ Tech Summit where Andrew Cooke, General Counsel at TravelPerk, was speaking. While the content of all the sessions at the Summit was excellent, Andrew surprised me by referencing John Boyd’s OODA loop. This isn’t something you hear most lawyers reference so easily and appropriately.
Part of our mission here is to help corporate legal work suck less by building the best evidence-based operating practices into our software, and OODA is a framework that has been successfully used for many years and that we support in mot-r.
The OODA Loop (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) is a decision-making process developed by military strategist Colonel John Boyd (a former fighter pilot). It's designed to be used in high-stakes, rapidly changing environments.
Here's a breakdown of each phase:
OODA is a great tool when you know you don’t know the right answer but still have to take action. It is meant to be used iteratively to continuously take in new information and quickly adapt your actions to a changing environment.
Does this apply to corporate legal? Yes. Even if the pace of decision making might be slightly slower than making decisions in an aerial dog fight, this loop applies.
You could argue in a team setting that Act could be labelled Orchestrate, making it an OODO loop, because OODA was developed for a highly skilled individual make personal decisions rather than engaging a team to make the best decisions. But that’s a discussion for another day.
Let’s consider a topical example. What if the GC is asked by the company to review the legal implications of using ChatGPT throughout the organization?
What an initial OODA loop might look like:
By applying the OODA Loop with a focus on legal considerations, the General Counsel can make a better-informed, compliant, and ethical decisions on integrating ChatGPT organization-wide, ensuring the legal implications are addressed.
Of course, since new versions of ChatGPT (let alone all the other alternatives) are being released quickly, you’ll want to make another loop each time there are significant new capabilities which present new opportunities and risks.
Should you be using OODA for all your decision-making? Absolutely not. OODA is a tool that can be effectively applied in the right situations. But it’s not right for every decision-making situation.
Where can OODA fail to be an effective tool? In the following circumstances:
1. Overwhelming Complexity
2. Incomplete or Inaccurate Observations
3. Cognitive Biases
4. Organizational Inertia
5. Lack of Expertise
6. High-Stakes, One-Time Decisions
7. Lack of Feedback Mechanisms
8. Overemphasis on Speed Over Quality
9. Cultural Misalignment
By understanding both the benefits and the limitations, legal decision-makers can better assess when the OODA Loop is appropriate, and when other decision-making frameworks might be more effective.
I've written previously about the effective application of the OODA loop to legal operations, and also where it doesn't apply. While it is a very...
I had the good fortune to attend a session at Alternative Events’ Tech Summit where Andrew Cooke, General Counsel at TravelPerk, was speaking. While...
Now with the preamble out of the way from Part I, let's drill down into the LegalTech Stack issue.