Military strategist and U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd is famous for developing a decision-making process used when facing uncertainty and ambiguity. The four-step decision-making cycle of Observe Orient Decide and Act is simply referred to as the OODA Loop. The ability to cycle through these four decision-making steps faster than the situation unfolds increases the chances of a favorable outcome.
As a young fighter pilot flying over Korea, Boyd noted that he sometimes failed to shift his perspective and instead held fast to a preconceived notion about how a situation should evolve rather than how it was evolving. When he modified his approach, he was far more effective against enemy aircraft. His experience in Korea laid the foundation for what he eventually conceptualized in his “OODA Loop” philosophy: the need to rapidly change when circumstances changed.
Boyd’s loop was borne from a need to sharpen military tactics but grew into a tool for creating effective military strategies; it eventually provided value far beyond the battlefield. Having offered a new paradigm for looking at and understanding the world, the OODA Loop found applications in litigation, law enforcement, business, and competitive sports. Boyd asserted that circular feedback could only occur if real-time data were incorporated into the decision-making process, which could then inform better decisions and drive more appropriate actions. Otherwise, Boyd recognized, the paradigm was not circular, but rather a short straight line, leading nowhere.
CloudCompli deals with the uncertainty and ambiguity posed by weather events in the same fashion. CloudCompli takes inputs in the form of weather forecasts provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and analyzes the data against predetermined triggers before recommending actions (water samples or stormwater inspections). Data that CloudCompli automatically pulls from NOAA websites include predicted wind speeds, temperatures, the probability of precipitation and precipitation amounts. Weather data is then logged in a forecast table that is conveniently linked to the work site’s location page. Additionally, CloudCompli takes weather data and translates it into data that can be compared to requirements set forth in compliance permit, which helps drive inspections. CloudCompli automatically pre-populates applicable weather data into inspection forms, helping streamline the inspection during rain events. All these functions add value and ensure compliance. However, forecasted weather data alone is insufficient. Real-time information about weather conditions must be factored into the cycle in order to create an effective feedback mechanism.
Hence the reason why Weather Underground is such an important component of CloudCompli’s ability to drive sound decisions. Weather Underground is a network of more than 180,000 weather monitoring gauges located throughout the nation. Weather Underground offers the ability for users to add to the network their own weather monitoring station, stations that CloudCompli can then access and offer real-time, field-based, weather-related data about that user’s worksite on the CloudCompli platform. This partnership ensures an effective feedback loop. The decision-making loop of the end user is tightened with this additional real-time weather data, which informs smarter decisions and drives more appropriate actions.
CloudCompli’s approach to dealing with weather data favors agility, accuracy, and useful analysis. Because CloudCompli automatically pulls from NOAA key data, it is able to model potential weather events. Without modeling and analysis, data means nothing. Therefore, CloudCompli analyzes the weather data and compares it to triggers, some of which are issue-based, some time-based and others weather-based. NOAA forecasting data, coupled with data from Weather Underground, ensures that inspection requirements related to weather-based triggers such as “pre-rain”, “during rain” and “post-rain” events are satisfied.