REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGEForm Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing this collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302, and The nature of decision making reveals many distinguishing features of organizations, from biological organisms to corporate enterprises. Embodied in the process of decision making are assumptions about relationships, value, communication, and resources, as well as infrastructure to implement these assumptions. Most importantly, decisionmaking processes reflect how organizations reconcile control and creative freedom -a tension that produces innovation and evolution. A new capacity for rapid, ad hoc, and distributed decision making is emerging from the intersection of technologies of cooperation and new knowledge about the nature of cooperation and cooperative strategies. This report investigates the challenges, strategies, technologies, and best practices that will shape this new capacity. NUMBER OF PAGES 14. SUBJECT TERMS Executive SummaryA new capacity for rapid, ad hoc, and distributed decision making is emerging from the intersection of technologies of cooperation and new knowledge about the nature of cooperation and cooperative strategies. This report investigates the challenges, strategies, technologies, and best practices that will shape this new capacity.Figure E-1 summarizes our findings. Around the outside of the mandala are the challenges to rapid decision making. The inner circles represent the four strategic domains for addressing these challenges. For each domain we describe strategic actions (the boxes) that decision makers can take to improve their decision-making processes. Executive Summary CHALLENGESThe challenges arise particularly when decision makers are engaged with complex issues involving multiple stakeholders, unanticipated events, ad hoc structures or groups, and uncertain or unstable environments. Among the key challenges that practitioners report are:• Overcoming poor infrastructures STRATEGIESFour main strategic domains emerge from the analysis of these challenges in the context of technologies of cooperation and cooperative strategy:• Develop both stocks and flows of information. Among the strategic imperatives here are making a multiple "thin slices," activating network links with experts and specialists to open up flows; liberating tacit knowledge into network stocks; developing rapid feedback mechanisms from local sources; linking top-down and bottom-up information flows; developing hybrid technology ecologies; and removing constraints on "knowledge bandwid...

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Purpose -The Institute for the Future (IFTF) has collaborated with the Rockefeller Foundation and its Searchlight function to create a framework for broad engagement in strategic thinking about ways to catalyze change in the lives of poor or vulnerable communities. This paper seeks to focus on this broad-based approach.Design/methodology/approach -Starting from the top-down horizon scan of the foundation's Searchlight partners -a network of horizon scanning organizations -IFTF created a public database of signals of innovation and disruption in the domain of poverty and social change. This signals database was used to build a visual map of catalysts for change, creating a simple hierarchy of four catalyst types, each containing four action zones and a pivotal challenge. This map provided the language and framework for engaging a global community in a serious game to extend the vision of the Searchlight function and capture novel ideas for innovations that could improve the lives of those in marginalized communities.Findings -With an estimated global reach of 160,000 views and 1,600 game players from 79 countries, the game produced more than 18,000 ideas about catalysts for change.Originality/value -This framework of foresight (the signals database) to insight (the visual map of catalysts for change) to action (global strategic game) demonstrates a way to integrate top-down expert foresight with bottom-up strategic ideation on a global scale.