In ooda x cloud, I wrote:
More: compressing Orient and Decide, the time between Observation and Action, enables you to change the operative environment such that the adversary is orienting towards and making decisions based on an outdated model representing a reality that no longer exists.
There are physical limits to observation and action. Given equally matched adversaries with access to the same data and tools, both will hit absolute limits to how fast they can observe the environment or act on it.
For orient and decide, no such limits. These are mental processes. Their analogs: algorithms, analytics, patterns, heuristics, models, etc.
If you orient and decide fast enough, then your action will change the competitive environment before the adversary has decided what to do. They will be drawing conclusions and acting on a model of the past, instead of the present. With each iteration, you move further ahead in time. You can literally..
Change the game.
Spending time discussing cloud in terms of mission objectives and operational leverage lately brought up John Boyd and OODA. The theory holds that:
"…to win in battle a pilot needs to operate at a faster tempo than his enemy…he must stay one or two steps ahead of his adversary: he must operate inside his adversary's time scale."
- Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War.
More or less: whoever moves faster through the process of Observing the operative environment, Orienting themselves towards it, Deciding on a course of action, and Acting--wins.
More: compressing Orient and Decide, the time between Observation and Action, enables you to change the operative environment such that the adversary is orienting towards and making decisions based on an outdated model representing a reality that no longer exists.
The application to any competitive market is obvious, so instead here's an analogy:
Observe - instrumentation, monitoring, data collection, etc.
Orient - analytics in all its forms, correlation, visualization, etc.
Decide - modeling, scenarios, heuristics, etc.
Act - provision, develop, deploy, fail, iterate, etc.
What does cloud speed up? And who has the advantage?
“What IT people call shadow IT..what other people call getting work done.”
-Jeff Gelb, Director of Technical Strategy at Pearson
Getting work done is what people are paid for. IT exists to provide tools, platforms, levers, force multipliers, accelerators. No one invests in IT to create inhibitors to the work that needs doing. But where there’s shadow IT, you have a very strong signal that that’s exactly what is going on.
The good: people very motivated to get things done
The bad: IT not a part of things getting done
The ugly: disintermediation, loss of confidence in IT
Despite all the hand waving that goes on about this, it’s not so bad. This is an opportunity for IT to reconsider not just how, but why, it does what it does.
Quoting Hugh MacLeod, “Relentlessly ask, ‘How are we helping our users kick a**?’”
Former colleague asks on Facebook. The context is a large public technology company.
Why, so often, are customers seen as the enemy?
Because they're the thing in between the company + the revenue. Because the real customer is shareholders + the buying-customer is part of the supply chain. Because product managers think customers exist to buy their products. Because better competition is seen as a decision failure on the customer's part instead of a portfolio/marketing/competitive failure on the company's part. Because large entrenched public companies are often myopically, maladaptively egocentric.
In my admittedly short career (just over 15yrs) so far, every observation I’ve ever made has led me to the conclusion that size is a fundamental competitive disadvantage [though not necessarily a fatal one]. Why? Because to make size manageable, we typically arrive at a series of abstractions in the form of: process, bureaucracy, hierarchy, etc. This creates a large opportunity space for mistakes, disconnection from reality, safety from the negative consequences of decisions, general incompetence, gerrymandering, insularity, etc.
There’s exactly 1 thing that matters about the iPad/iPhone/etc: the interface. Nothing else. The rest is product development. The interface is a strategy. No other tech company gets this. At least not at scale.