🚀 go-pugleaf

Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> writes:
> My question is, why keep inventing new terminology for something that
> successful developers have been doing since the 1960s, at least? It
> succeeds in making something simple sound esoteric.

agile/scrum discovers Col. Boyd and OODA-loop, some refs

Defining an Agile delivery plan with the OODA loop
https://cm.engineering/defining-an-agile-delivery-plan-with-the-ooda-loop-c723b21b4f1c?gi=4a2bd7f330bf
OODA loop
http://wikispeed.org/2016/10/ooda-loop/
How does Boyd's OODA loop compare to the discipline of agile project
management?
https://www.quora.com/How-does-Boyds-OODA-loop-compare-to-the-discipline-of-agile-project-management
What Lessons Can the Agile Community Learnfrom A Maverick Fighter Pilot?
https://www.scribd.com/document/15670827/John-Boyd-Lessons-from-a-fighter-pilot
OODA: The Mindset of Scrum
http://blog.aglx.consulting/2016/02/20/ooda-the-mindset-of-scrum/
John Boyd and the Origins of "Agility"
https://smartbear.com/blog/collaborate/john-boyd-and-the-origins-of-agility/

So, what is Agile?

Agile is a set of principles and values that have come to be employed in
business and computing. But their origin lies in the Korean War, in the
lessons learned and taught by John Boyd.

...

Robert Greene has written that the OODA cycle was "deeply relevant to
any kind of competitive environment: business, politics, sports, even
the struggle of organisms to survive" (February 24, 2007). He's right,
and it's important for those of us involved in agile computing and
related fields to recognize it.

... snip ...

OODA-loop (Boyd, "Father of F16")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

some scrum/agile will wander into boyd groups at linkedin and/or
facebook. I was originally introduced to Boyd in the early 80s and
would sponsor his briefings at IBM. Boyd Posts and some web URLs
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

trivia: The first time, I tried to do the briefings through the plant
site employee education ... and initially they agreed. Then as I
supplied more information, they changed their mind. They said that IBM
spends a great deal of money educating managers on dealing with
employees and they viewed exposing general employees to John Boyd
briefings it could be detrimental. They suggested that I limit
attendence at the briefings to senior members of competitive analysis
departments.

... part of long winded post I made yesterday in Boyd group:

In briefings Boyd would talk about former military officers steeped in
rigid, top-down, command&control ... were starting to contaminate US
corporations (however, this was in period when articles started to
appear that MBAs were destroying US companies with their myopic focus on
short term results and financial engineering). He would also talk about
periodic review of large scale war games ... admirals & generals would
spend all year playing golf while their staffs practiced. When it came
time for the game, the admirals&generals had no "finger reel" for war
room information flow (some subsequent analysis that it was a problem
with information overload and how to reduce the information flow to rate
that top people could absorb and make decisions, as opposed to not
sufficiently practiced). However, the corollary to information overload
is decision overload ... both the appropriate information as well as the
appropriate decisions. The issue of decision overload is another way
approaching mission command. Boyd would talk about pushing decisions
down as far as possible to the appropriate level and to the people
closest to the problem.

I've periodically referenced of Boyd would sometimes appear to be
thinking concurrently with both sides of his brain and carrying on
simultaneously different threads in single converstation ... having to
infer which sentence belonging to which thread ... in order to
respond. This gets into studies about how language and vocabulary can
shape/limit how people think ... and the Toyota reference that there
aren't words for what they do
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/how-toyota-turns-workers-into-problem-solvers

Boyd had coup d'oeil and fingerspitzengefuhl with intuition and instinct
... and plausably 1846 Halleck
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Instruction-Fortification-Embracing-ebook/dp/B002RKSO9K
loc5019-20: A rapid coup d'oeil prompt decision, active movements, are
as indispensable as sound judgment; for the general must see, and
decide, and act, all in the same instant.

So "see, decide, act" implied only single act and lacked the concept of
a "mental map" which might be static. Boyd needed to impart continuous
operation and also address confirmation/observation bias from a static
"mental map"; needed it to be dynamically updated. So get "OODA-loop"
... where "see" becomes observation and "orientation" (mental map) is
added to decide and act. Problem is still not sufficient; in briefings
he said that needed to constantly observe from every possible facet (to
constantly update "orientation", countermeasure to static "mental map"
and confirmation/observation/orientation bias). Also for most people
"loop" implies sequential, step-by-step and what he really needed was
something that implied not only continuous operation but all parts
running simultaneously and asynchronously.

Along with this is something akin to "mission command" ... transition
for F16 to unstable airframe required "fly by wire" because human no
longer could directly control all the operations needed in real time
... where the "stick" becomes pilot "intent" and "fly by wire" executes
all the operations needed, including compensating for failed/damaged
components. Again there is lack of vocabulary to convey intent being
translated into large number of concurrent and asynchronous activities
that can dynamically adapt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxed_stability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire#Closed_feedback_loop_control
How the F-16 Became the World's First Fly-By-Wire Combat Aircraft
http://www.f-16.net/articles_article13.html

At 2011 Naval Academy conference there was discussion of military drones
completely eliminating the pilot and "intent" being provided by the
"mission specialist".

So stepping back, simple example of intuition/instinct is "touch typing"
versus "hunt&peck". Lots of "touch typing" teaching was done on
keyboards with no letters to eliminate any "hunt&peck". As computers
evolved from paper typewriters to screens, "menus" appeared. There is
still lots of discussions about "command line" being equivalent to
"touch typing" and menus being crutch equivalent to "hunt&peck". Boyd
needed a concept/word generalization that went beyond specific
actions/contexts, OODA-loop still has the deficiency that "loop" has the
connotation for many of sequential, step-by-step rather than
continuously, asynchronously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire#Automatic_stability_systems

Also analogous to "touch typing" versus "hunt&peck", there are periodic
discussions about being proficient in computer language ... analogous to
proficiency in natural language ... and even going beyond where the
abstraction has no direct representation. This showed up last decade in
discussion between the CEO of Microsoft and SVP of Intel. M'soft CEO was
telling the Intel SVP that they have to stop doing multi-core chips and
return to single core (increasingly faster) chips because parallel
(concurrent) programming of multiple cores was too hard. Issue is
standard programming languages specify things sequentially, step-by-step
... have to step outside the straight programming language to deal
efficiently with large number of simultaneously and concurrent
operations. The holy grail in dataprocessing for some time has been a
programming language with constructs that efficiently represent
simultaneous and concurrent operations (analogous to intent of stick in
fly-by-wire systems and/or intent in "mission command").

old posts reference m'soft/intel multi-core & parallel programming too
hard:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#78 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#42 Panic in Multicore Land
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#15 Why do people say "the soda loop is often depicted as a simple loop"?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#44 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#48 New HD
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#85 Parallel programming may not be so daunting
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#52 [CM] What was your first home computer?

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970