A decision cycle or decision loop is a sequence of steps used by an entity on a repeated basis to reach and implement decisions and to learn from the results. The "decision cycle" phrase has a history of use to broadly categorize various methods of making decisions, going upstream to the need, downstream to the outcomes, and cycling around to connect the outcomes to the needs.
John Richard Boyd was a United States Air Force fighter pilot and Pentagon consultant during the second half of the 20th century. His theories have been highly influential in military, business, and litigation strategies and planning.
A strategist is a person with responsibility for the formulation and implementation of a strategy. Strategy generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). The senior leadership of an organization is generally tasked with determining strategy. Strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes. It involves activities such as strategic planning and strategic thinking.
Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare, is a military strategy which emphasizes movement, initiative and surprise to achieve a position of advantage. Maneuver seeks to inflict losses indirectly by envelopment, encirclement and disruption, while minimizing the need to engage in frontal combat. In contrast to attrition warfare where strength tends to be applied against strength, maneuver warfare attempts to apply strength against weakness in order to accomplish the mission.
In the field of military theory, the operational level of war represents the level of command that connects the details of tactics with the goals of strategy.
A learning cycle is a concept of how people learn from experience. A learning cycle will have a number of stages or phases, the last of which can be followed by the first.
David Allen Kolb is an American educational theorist whose interests and publications focus on experiential learning, the individual and social change, career development, and executive and professional education. He is the founder and chairman of Experience Based Learning Systems, Inc. (EBLS), and an Emeritus Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
In military science, force multiplication or a force multiplier is a factor or a combination of factors that gives personnel or weapons the ability to accomplish greater feats than without it. The expected size increase required to have the same effectiveness without that advantage is the multiplication factor. For example, if a technology like GPS enables a force to accomplish the same results as a force five times as large without GPS, then the multiplier is five. Such estimates are used to justify the investment for force multipliers.
Battlespace or battle-space is a term used to signify a military strategy which integrates multiple armed forces for the military theatre of operations, including air, information, land, sea, cyber and outer space to achieve military goals. It includes the environment, timeframe and other factors, and conditions that must be understood to successfully apply combat power, protect the force, or complete the mission. This includes enemy and friendly armed forces, infrastructure, weather, terrain, and the electromagnetic spectrum within the operational areas and areas of interest.
Intelligence cycle management refers to the overall activity of guiding the intelligence cycle, which is a set of processes used to provide decision-useful information (intelligence) to leaders. The cycle consists of several processes, including planning and direction, collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and production, and dissemination and integration. The related field of counterintelligence is tasked with impeding the intelligence efforts of others. Intelligence organizations are not infallible but, when properly managed and tasked, can be among the most valuable tools of management and government.
Swarming is a battlefield tactic designed to maximize target saturation, and thereby overwhelm or saturate the defences of the principal target or objective. Defenders can overcome attempts at swarming by launching counter-swarming measures that are designed to neutralize or otherwise repel such attacks.
Next-best-action marketing, as a special case of next-best-action decision-making, is a customer-centric marketing paradigm that considers the different actions that can be taken for a specific customer and decides on the ‘best’ one. The Next Best Action is determined by the customer's interests and needs on one hand, and the marketing organization's business objectives and policies on the other. This is in sharp contrast to traditional marketing approaches that first create a proposition for a product or service and then attempt to find interested and eligible prospects for that proposition. The practice, direct marketing, is typically automated in the form of a campaign management tool, is often product-centric, and usually always marketing-centric.
Reflective writing is an analytical practice in which the writer describes a real or imaginary scene, event, interaction, passing thought, or memory and adds a personal reflection on its meaning. Many reflective writers keep in mind questions such as "What did I notice?", "How has this changed me?" or "What might I have done differently?" when reflecting.
The disruptive solutions process (DSP) is a form of iterative, low-cost, first-to-market development created in 2005 by fighter pilot and United States Air Force/Air National Guard Colonel Edward Vaughan. It is primarily used by the Air National Guard to prevent mishaps during the combat operations process.
Patterns of Conflict was a presentation by Colonel John Boyd outlining his theories on modern combat and how the key to success was to upset the enemy's "observation-orientation-decision-action time cycle or loop", or OODA loop. Patterns developed the idea of a "counter-blitz", a blitzkrieg in reverse, with numerous attacks followed by withdrawals to the rear. The aim was to confuse the enemy by presenting no apparent strategy, reveal the enemy's intentions through the strength of the response, and present a misleading picture of the defender's own actions in order to disrupt the attacker's future plan of action.
Litigation strategy is the process by which counsel for one party to a lawsuit intends to integrate their actions with anticipated events and reactions to achieve the overarching goal of the litigation. The strategic goal may be the verdict, or the damages or sentence awarded in the case. Alternatively, in the case of impact litigation the goal may be more far-reaching, such as setting legal precedent, affecting consumer-safety standards, or reshaping the public's perception of a societal issue. Broader goals and more challenging cases require a strategist with a greater understanding of, and facility with, the tools of litigation strategy.
The term kill chain is a military concept which identifies the structure of an attack. It consists of:
David A. Kolb published his experiential learning theory (ELT) in 1984, inspired by the work of the gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin, as well as John Dewey and Jean Piaget. The approach works on two levels: a four-stage learning cycle and four distinct learning styles. Kolb's experiential learning theory has a holistic perspective which includes experience, perception, cognition and behaviour. It is a method where a person's skills and job requirements can be assessed in the same language that its commensurability can be measured.
