time scales would make the Agile development company appear completely unpredictable and bewildering to its slower competitor.
Another key attribute of MWT that is shared by Agile development is the creation of small yet self-sufficient and cross-functional teams. In Agile, a team works as a unified unit to define and prioritize known customer needs, then build and release an operational product or service for immediate testing and feedback. MWT refers to this concept as “combined arms,” where units contain people and resources with a comprehensive and complimentary mix of capabilities. Such a force structure allows the team to deal adaptively with a wide range of situations, threats, and opportunities. Companies that form “tiger teams” to deal with a crisis or mission-critical project are also applying this concept.
The agility of Lean manufacturing has been applied to entrepreneurial endeavors. In this context, the goal is to relentlessly eliminate waste from the process of discovering what customers are actually willing to pay for, with a profitable return to the startup organization. The Lean Startup movement is in many respects maneuver warfare theory applied to startups.
OODA Loop John Boyd, in the 1990s, synthesized all of his research and thinking about military theories and human decision making into a diagram that became known as the OODA Loop. OODA stands for Observation, Orientation, Decision, and Action. In this framework, decision cycles operate largely (although not completely) in this order. A notable exception is “implicit guidance and control”, when actions are taken without conscious decision. MWT has a term for this implicit knowledge that will be provided shortly.
The phrase “operating inside your opponent’s OODA Loop” refers to someone able to accurately observe the situation, orient themselves within it, make a decision, and then act upon it faster than others. Isn’t this the ultimate goal for all of us in the sUAS landscape? Executing this process much faster than others makes one appear unpredictable and bewildering. It worked for John Boyd as a fighter pilot. It worked for the Nazi Blitzkrieg. It works for football teams who “call an audible” on the field. And it worked for Toyota. It is essentially what happened with every other example of smaller, weaker forces defeating their opponents. It also explains the greater effectiveness of an Agile development method described previously.
In the context of warfare (or competitive business), efforts to obstruct or impede others’ ability to observe reality or gain an accurate orientation form the basis for many strategies and tactics. Stealth maneuvers, decoys, double agents, feigning weakness, and misinformation are all effective against enemies because they sabotage fundamental elements of their OODA Loop.
The following five concepts and terms have been distilled by Chet Richards, working with John Boyd, to characterize organizations that effectively conduct maneuver warfare. German words are used, partly because of their unique meaning and also because they are traced to the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. He was another important figure in the history of maneuver warfare.
Schwerpunkt (focal point) This is sometimes referred to as the Center of Gravity (an appropriate analogy for sUAS pilots). This is the point at which maximum influence and affect can be achieved. In a business setting, this could mean direct contact with the primary decision maker (or department) for an enterprise-level business-to-business (B2B) purchase. The Lean Startup could be described as the most efficient method to eliminate wasted time, money, and features to satisfy the Schwerpunkt of a customer’s pain or desire.
Auftragstaktik (mission-type tactics) This is also called Mission Command or Commander’s Intent. Subordinates are given clear direction on the ultimate objective (the goal or Schwerpunkt) and a timeframe to achieve it (the