Competent decision-making, whether on the fireground or the battleground, appears to develop in continually evolving cycles.

As the first-due engine arrived on scene, the captain keyed the microphone. “Engine 42 on scene. Two-story frame dwelling. Light smoke showing from the rear. Engine 42 establishing command.” The crew laid a 1I-inch line through the front door.

The battalion chief arrived and directed additional units in supporting the initial attack. Thirty minutes later, it was over except for the salvage and investigation. Why had the plan worked so well? What was the process that made it happen?

Over 40 years ago, Col. John Boyd, one of the U.S. Air Force's best fighter pilots and a veteran of jet combat over Korea, set out to explain why some pilots succeeded in air combat while others, equally well trained, failed. Over the course of a lifetime, the insights that Boyd gained from studying dogfights grew into a wider description of tactical decision-making in dynamic situations.

Long taught within the military, Boyd's ideas are gaining increasing influence in business and political circles. A general understanding of this theory may also provide useful insights into fireground command.

A four-part cycle

The heart of Boyd's theory is the premise that a tactical decision is the result of a four-step process commonly dubbed the “ooda loop” after its component parts. Boyd called these four stages observation, orientation, decision and action.

Observation: Whether observation consists of the visual cues that guide a fighter pilot or the staff papers and briefings presented to a senior administrator, the decision-maker must first perceive and assimilate information about the environment as a basis for decision.

Orientation: Once the decision-maker has gained information through his or others' observations, he must fit those pieces of information into a useful understanding of the situation.

Decision: The decision-maker selects a course of action.

Action: The desired course of action is executed.

In a dogfight, both pilots carry out these steps in rapid, almost continuous succession. Indeed, under normal circumstances, the two pilots are not aware of the steps as they cycle through them.

If one pilot arrives at successful decisions faster than the other, the slower pilot will be left responding to actions that the faster pilot is already evaluating and changing. As the cycle continues, the slower pilot's decisions lag increasingly behind the rapidly changing situation. His decisions are less and less appropriate to the actual situation, and ultimately he is defeated. The victorious pilot is said to have a shorter ooda loop.

Within the U.S. military, the value of rapid decision-making has been recognized far beyond the arena of air combat. The idea that tactical agility, “getting inside the enemy's ooda loop,” could permit a smaller, better-trained force to defeat a larger, slower opponent appealed across the services.

Outnumbered by Soviet ground forces in Europe, the Army incorporated Boyd's ideas into its “Air/Land Battle” doctrine. The Marine Corps, whose expeditionary mission often requires fighting larger forces under difficult conditions, was particularly taken with Boyd's ideas and incorporated them into its “maneuver warfare” doctrine in the 1980s. After the 1991 victory in Kuwait, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak went so far as to call Col. Boyd one of the architects of victory in the Persian Gulf War.

Current U.S. military doctrine emphasizes translating high-speed information flow into “dominant maneuver” faster than an enemy force can react. (See “Waves of the future,” January and February 2000, available at <www.firechief.com>.) It also contemplates direct attacks to “convince, confuse or deceive enemy decision-makers,” thereby lengthening the enemy's ooda loop.

OODA loops on the fireground

While on the fireground we don't directly confront another decision-maker, every emergency presents the incident commander with dynamic circumstances similar to combat. The rate of change varies from incident to incident. An overturned vehicle with no serious injuries may present a relatively stable circumstance; a fire threatening exposures may not.

In either case, the incident commander will instinctively approximate the decision-making process Boyd described. With this in mind, observations about the ooda loop may help illuminate fireground decision-making.

First, the “orientation” phase of the ooda loop means different things in different situations. At the strategic level, decision-makers may create (synthesize) a new idea of the situation. For example, a fire chief balancing complex negotiations involving demands by his city manager and the firefighters' labor union may create a detailed mental image of the situation. Here, the decision-maker has time to seek counsel, consider his options and seek the best possible solution.

In contrast, decision-makers in tactical situations, like the fireground, typically take the more rapid approach of fitting observed information into a pattern drawn from prior experience. This process has been likened to matching the observed situation to a single photographic slide in an entire tray of images from previous experiences.

The intent is not to create a new concept of this type of situation or to arrive at the “ideal” solution, but rather to recognize the situation and thus quickly identify actions that meet the immediate need. This “slide show” approach is similar to Level 3 recognition-primed decision-making. (See “Make the right call,” March 1999, available at <www.firechief.com>.) Boyd, however, emphasized that decision-making is a continuous process; every decision is followed by another ooda cycle.

In complex situations, most expert decision-makers will be involved in what may be best conceived as several parallel ooda loops on related decisions. A fireground commander, for example, may be simultaneously considering pressing his interior attack, an exposure problem and an exterior attack as a fallback or contingency. New information will feed all three decisions.

How to speed up and how not to

As a cyclical process, the speed of the ooda loop is limited by its slowest step. One temptation for commanders is to extend the observation (information-gathering) phase of the process, which can lead to what is sometimes called “analysis-paralysis,” in the hope that more information will improve the resulting decisions. (See Chief's Clipboard, April 1998, available at <www.firechief.com>.)

In general, however, research has shown that once a decision-maker has the minimum information required to make an informed judgment, gathering more information doesn't improve the efficacy or correctness of his decisions. Further, most expert decision-makers (like experienced fire officers) rely on observation of fewer factors than they realize to make a decision.

One technique the military uses to shorten decision-making times is to establish in advance the minimum information required to make a decision in anticipated situations. In many situations, minimum essential information is codified into a formal list of expected indicators.

This knowledge exists in the fire service, but is only rarely formalized. In most cases it's gleaned from personal experience or is contained in texts to be organized by the student. Formalizing the list of required information allows decision-makers to focus their limited attention on gathering the information they truly need and creates a standard understanding of situations among officers.

Accurate, rapid decision-making is not a function of technology. The U.S. military receives, processes and presents senior officers with more information than any force in history. Yet U.S. exercises employing German military officers with World War ii combat experience showed that these officers could make coherent tactical decisions with rudimentary information in minimal time. Technology is an asset only if it presents the few key variables the decision-maker requires (that is, the minimum required information) more rapidly or more understandably.

Finally, while every decision causes the ooda loop to begin anew, the decision-maker's view of newly observed information is itself affected by the decisions that the commander has just made. Commanders have a strong tendency to hold to previous decisions until the evidence for change is overwhelming.

For example, in a given fireground situation, a commander who arrives later in the incident might elect immediately to go defensive, while a commander who has already committed significant resources to offensive operations might maintain them well beyond that point. While this bias can never be completely overcome, a good decision-maker is aware of it and actively seeks information to challenge or validate his decisions.

By the time most firefighters become incident commanders, they've amassed an enormous amount of experience. They learn to be decision-makers by observing the results of fireground decisions. It's a method that has produced outstanding fireground commanders for generations.

Whether you know it or not, you already use ooda loops. Becoming aware of the often-unconscious processes that decision-makers follow, however, can provide a framework for fireground experience and help enhance the information flow that makes the process work.

An overview of Col. Boyd's ideas and eclectic career is found in the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, July 1997. One of the best articles on the ooda loop in tactical decision-making is Capt. Kevin B. Smith's “Combat Information Flow,” which appeared in Military Review, April 1989. Both articles are available as pdf files at <www.firechief.com>.

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Dale C. Rielage is a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, currently assigned to the staff of the Commander, U.S. Second Fleet. He is a graduate of the Naval War College and holds a master's degree from Old Dominion University. Rielage has served as a Navy damage control assistant and is a volunteer firefighter/emt with the Virginia Beach (Va.) Fire Department. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and not those of any agency of the U.S. Government.