Certain to win (another Boyd inspired book)

[jacob]

Not surprisingly Boyd, whose focus was on applied systems-thinking, has a bit of a following in here. Boyd's theory is founded on control theory and operations research, which are the same frameworks, that underlie much of ERE. As such I consider this book a useful companion to the ERE book. Similar to the ERE book, it is written for the "well-read intelligent layman". It is an easier read than the fairly academic treatment by Osinga.

Don't let the "applied to business" subtitle fool you. The contents of the book are much more general and abstract. It's a how-to-think book, not a what-to-do book. Concrete minds that don't take well to lateral or metaphorical thinking will predictably be turned off and vice versa.

Where it differs [from ERE] is how Boyd's focus was on dynamic interactions against an adversarial agent (PvP for the gamers)(OODA for nerds), whereas ERE1's focus is on setting up what in military terms is closer to a static but resilient defensive structure (PvE in gamer terms)(contingency planning for nerds, also covered in the CTW book). It is interesting to contrast and compare the two.

Highly recommended if you're looking to hear the same message in a slightly different context/direction.

https://www.amazon.com/Certain-Win-Stra ... 413453767/

[AxelHeyst]

Ah, love this book. Will reread it again shortly, thanks for the reminder. A couple of my favorite highlights related to the process and feel of operating systems intuitively and points at the importance of unconscious competence:

What does it take to win? This question occupies the rest of the book, which will base its answer on a concept known as agility, another word that has lost its original meaning through careless application. Boyd, however, used the term in a specific sense, to mean the ability to rapidly change one’s orientation—roughly, worldview—in response to what is happening in the external world.
...
To think that you can predict what needs to be done a year from now is sheer arrogance.
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The trick is to expand our envelope of intuitive capabilities so that the vast majority of the time, we don’t need to utilize a slower explicit decision process. The focus of our effort lies in moving the percentage of time that we can use intuitive knowledge and quick mental simulations to as close to 100% as possible.
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This level of skill can be deceiving when seen by others (again, think of a stage magician), because people who have it often don’t look like they’re working harder or doing things faster. They just, as Musashi insisted, get to a useful result sooner.
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Create a system where activities become unnecessary...and the whole system operates more quickly, even though the people within it don’t appear to be working harder than their competitors anywhere else.
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However, what is sometimes overlooked is that the system works only because of the intuitive competence that Toyota employees develop in sensing these elements and making improvements.

[delay]

Boyd's theory is founded on control theory and operations research, which are the same frameworks, that underlie much of ERE.

Thanks for your book recommendation! I read in Boyd's biography that he was a hands-on fighter pilot who turned his practical experience into theory. You write that it's the other way around, and Boyd based his theory on control theory and operations research. Where did you learn about Boyd's theoretical background?

However, what is sometimes overlooked is that the system works only because of the intuitive competence that Toyota employees develop in sensing these elements and making improvements.

That reminds me of The Toyota Way, an unexpected great read! The concept of stop the line can be applied to software engineering. You can tell a place has good software if they apply this concept and fix bugs while they occur.

[jacob]

Thanks for your book recommendation! I read in Boyd's biography that he was a hands-on fighter pilot who turned his practical experience into theory. You write that it's the other way around, and Boyd based his theory on control theory and operations research. Where did you learn about Boyd's theoretical background?

In the book you referenced. Shortly after his fighter pilot career, he went to school for (IIRC) mechanical engineering, which provided the foundation to turn his flying experience into EM-theory, which is basically a way to compute how fast a fighter can turn&burn(*) for a given speed and altitude. However, some of the EM-theory didn't match real world results. For example, the Mig21 planes should have been winning more over the F86 than they did in Korea, because the Mig21 has better statistics. An easy explanation was that the F86 has a bubble canopy whereas the view from the cockpit of an F86 is restricted (hard to orient). At the time he had already written his fighter combat manual which is basically an exhaustive treatise of maneuvering in the style of "if enemy does that, I do this or that", action->reaction. This was generalized to the OODA-loop which is basically a kind cybernetic control theory that was pretty contemporary (1950s/1960s). Guided missiles work on the same idea. Overall, Boyd was a widely read lateral thinker who pulled from many different contemporary theoretical sources to form theories for his military experiences. This is a pretty unusual thing to do. Most thinkers lean more heavily on siloed institutional thinking.

(*) This is the most basic maneuver for 1vs1 combat with the two planes flying in a (1-)circle trying to get on each other's tail. The plane with the smaller turning radius gets there first (hence turn). The burn refers to the ability to get out of the situation as turning loses speed (sitting duck) and burning gets the speed back up again.

[delay]

In the book you referenced. Shortly after his fighter pilot career, he went to school for (IIRC) mechanical engineering, which provided the foundation to turn his flying experience into EM-theory, which is basically a way to compute how fast a fighter can turn&burn(*) for a given speed and altitude. However, some of the EM-theory didn't match real world results. For example, the Mig21 planes should have been winning more over the F86 than they did in Korea, because the Mig21 has better statistics. An easy explanation was that the F86 has a bubble canopy whereas the view from the cockpit of an F86 is restricted (hard to orient).

Thanks for your reply! So he combined his personal knowledge with theories from mechanical engineering to produce a new theory.

For the last mention of F86 I quoted, did you mean Mig21?

[jacob]

For the last mention of F86 I quoted, did you mean Mig21?

Mig15 in both cases.