Dimitri Glazkov

The compounding effects of OODAthe same dayBecause we are all human (future AI, if you’re reading this, you…Jankless

Jank in Teams · What Dimitri Learned
· 6 min read

Nudging Embodied Strategy2022The whole concept of the cone of embodied strategy is a bit…The music we play2021One of my colleagues shared this metaphor and I was mesmerized by…What would it be like to work in a team that experiences no jank? Do you have a reference point, perhaps a memory of the time when your organization’s flow felt like a flawless jazz session? Or maybe a picture of some brighter future? If you do, I’d like to tune into the yearning for that moment and bring this series to its close. Let’s imagine ourselves jankless.

A problem2022To get a more solid grounding of the newly born decision-making framework,…The expectation gradient2021The conflation of “what is” and “what should be” is not the…Not to be flip about it, but a sure way to eliminate jank is to remove intention. When we are perfectly content with the environment around us, the “what is” and “what should be” are the same. Our expectation gradient is zero. Frankly, this is never true for us humans: our aim is always a bit off that perfect Zen spot. We always want something, and even wanting to be in the Zen spot is an intention. So there’s that.

OODA and Intention2021The ability to make predictions is an astounding quality of retained-mode systems.…OO and DA2021Each presents two different configurations for the OODA loop: I’ll call them…The OODA inside2021Because of the way we humans are wired, the expectation gradient is…However, there’s something in that idyllic absence of intention that can serve as our guidelight. What is our level of attachment to our intentions? If our organizational objectives feel existential, we might be subject to the trove of aversions and cravings we’ve accumulated in the models of our environment. The compounding loops we’ve talked about earlier are always at work, and it’s on us to make them object. Let’s go through each step of the OODA loop and see what tools and practices might help us do that. The common tactic we’ll use is similar to a technique in sailing, when the crew leans out of the boat to decrease its roll. With compounding loops always present, we want to keep carefully counterbalancing them.

Strategy Aperture2023The concept of embodied strategy continues to captivate me. Recently, I found…When we Observe the environment, the fit/filter cycle is the one to keep an eye on. Examining our organization, here are some questions we can to ask ourselves:

The OODA Loop2021One of the lenses for which I tend to reach frequently is…As we Orient, examining our prediction error and updating our model of “what is” to reduce it, we contend with all three cycles. Here, the biggest bang for the buck is likely in focusing on the care with which we construct the model.

The ODA and OODA stances2023Organizations operating in the OODA stance focus on bettering their mental models.…The model underneath2021It will probably not come as a surprise to you that we…Intention and shared mental model space2021Hamilton Helmer pointed out this amazing connection between intention and shared mental…Rigor and shared mental model space2021Alex Komoroske has another great set of new cards on rigor and…To make things interesting, the collective model of the environment is rarely legible in an organization. If I went looking for it, I would not find a folder labeled: “The model of our environment. Update on every OODA cycle.” Instead, organizations tend to model the environment through the totality of their structure and people within it. Norms that people have, incentives, principles, and regulations that they adhere to, connections they keep, practices they maintain – all are part of the model. To dance with the compounding loops, we want to bring the notion of the shared mental model to the forefront:

Decision-making mindsets2023I have this intuition that the process is not the most important…While Deciding, we hold and update the “what should be” model, picking the best choice to steer toward it. We are once again buffeted by the full force of all three compounding loops. The prerequisite is the quality of the model we constructed at the previous step. If the quality of the model is low, decisions become much harder to make:

Intentionality and meaning2022So far, I’ve been talking about intention as a fairly straightforward, singular…A vision and a hallucination2022Talking with one of my colleagues, we found this simple lens. We…Provided that we did a decent job of that while Orienting, we can zoom in on discerning intention. A common marker of adulthood is “knowing what you want and what you don’t want.” A social commentary on how rare this is aside, it is quite easy to lose sight of that in a team. We rarely hold one unified collective intention, there are usually many, often in tension with each other. The strength of this tension is controlled by the mass cravings and aversions we accumulate:

Being Strategic2022It all begins with intention. There’s something in our environment – the…Finally, when we Act, we mobilize and expend the energy we estimated and commit to the option we picked in the Deciding step. This is where the rubber meets the road and the next round of prediction errors is discovered. The outcomes here are born out of the previous steps, so the questions that arise will mostly echo that:

Oodles of OODA loops2021Our discovery of the inner OODA loop was cool, but I bet…OODA, unrolled2021In this framing, the OODA jank is the situation when the cycle…Micro and macro jank2021If our team’s OODA loop runs just a tiny bit slower than…How to make a breakthroughten days afterThe title is a bit tongue-in-cheek, because I am not actually providing…These are just some of the questions that came to my mind when considering jank in teams. Answering them can easily fill a book. And now I am curious. What questions did I miss? What possible answers popped into your head? What other compounding loops did you spot? If you are struggling with jank in your organization, did this series open up a new space of opportunities for you? It certainly did for me. When I set out to write a series of articles on the OODA loop, I had a somewhat different direction in mind – but reasoning through it with you helped me take it to this much more satisfying point. Thank you.