Time Kills All Deals – Using the OODA Loop to Move Quickly

Time kills all deals – David Morken, CEO of Bandwidth

The quote above I first heard from David a long time ago when I was at Bandwidth trying to hang on during some pretty wild times. We were in the middle of putting together a deal that would wind up being one of the most significant in the company’s history, but there were fires burning elsewhere that seemed more important.

David rightly understood that the more time goes by, regardless of what you are working on, the more possibility for others to creep in and win, or for your organization to waste time on things that don’t really matter. Your competitors are working feverishly to win your customers, to invent new and interesting technology, and to put you out of business.

David was also responsible for introducing me to the OODA Loop, a system for military combat developed by John Boyd. Boyd was instrumental in changing how American fighter pilots approached air to air combat and led to a period of unmatched superiority in the skies for American fighter pilots. He also designed the F-15 and F-16 jets. His impact on American military strategy would be hard to overstate.

The OODA Loop is a process for making decisions quickly. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

• Observe – Observe the context within which you’re operating and digest all of the possible information
• Orient – What is happening as you expected, what is different?
• Decide – Given the information you have in hand, what is the right next decision?
• Act – Follow through on the decision

What Boyd understood and then taught is that the faster you iterate through this loop, the more advantage you gain. In aerial combat, this can mean the difference between life and death. In your business, your life is not literally at stake of course, but it will feel that way at times.

The value of the OODA Loop is not that you always make the right decision, but that you train yourself to make decisions quickly and then, if they are wrong, go back through the loop and make the next one.

Every decision, especially early on, feels like life and death, and it can be paralyzing. Using the OODA Loop as a framework for daily operations can get you unstuck and keep you moving quickly through very difficult decisions.