[craftinator]

A couple of additional benefits of OODA loops, not editing my original because I'm on mobile:

It really helps prevent micromanaging, because it encourages the team leader to only change orders in response to a change in what they've observed.

It's very useful in after action debriefing ("debugging" for the HN crowd), because specific questions can be asked about where in the OODA loop a fault occured. Did you observe something incorrectly, or miss noticing a key detail? Did you incorrectly orient yourself because you didn't understand the purpose of what you were doing? Did you make a bad decision, or the wrong decision? Did you do everything else right, but your team failed in taking action correctly? Utilizing this framework gives granularity and introspection to you decision making process.

It prevents undermanagement, as you feel compelled (and justified) in responding to a changing situation, rather than fighting with yourself about taking action.

[Jtsummers]

"after action debriefing" = retrospective. A critical part of agile processes that's often ignored. It permits not just the examination of the product under development, but the processes that are in use.

It's a crucial difference between most organizations and proper "learning organizations". Most organizations (here I mean from team on up to large corporations) do not sufficiently introspect and retrospect to discover their own flaws (and we all have flaws). Learning organizations incorporate those two activities into their culture and methods in order to properly react to their competition and satisfy their customers.