 challenges.
You don't know what you don't know, or what you can't imagine. Decision-makers often operate with imperfect information in an environment of uncertainty. Taking a "live-and-learn" approach in this setting can prove costly, and can set in motion cascading and long-term complications.
Strategic gaming — where individuals likely to face crises get to act in response to a simulated scenario — allows leaders to "live strategy" and to flesh out the unknown and unimaginable within a risk-free setting. In the process, players identify what works and what doesn't — unconstrained by fear of expensive, or even dangerous, mistakes. Through gaming, players can apply tested approaches and lessons learned to the development and implementation of mitigation and response strategies. In other words, gaming helps reduce the incidence of planning in a vacuum.
On Monday (Nov. 9), leaders representing nations and regions, businesses and international organizations will come together to "play" their way to a more food-secure future. "Food Chain Reaction – A Global Food Security Game" is a policy decision-making game that will lead players to explore issues arising from, and possible responses to, global food system disruptions.
In recognition of the wide-ranging impacts of global food insecurity, Cargill, Mars, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Center for American Progress, with game design by CNA, developed the game to proactively identify potential solutions for addressing the drivers of, and responses to, global food disruptions. During four rounds of play spanning the decades 2020 to 2030, players will be confronted with food price and supply pressure at the intersection of population growth, urbanization, severe weather and social disturbances. In response, players will craft policies, make decisions and take actions that will dynamically influence the state of the world as the game advances. As the chain reaction of impacts tied to their choices becomes apparent, players will experience firsthand how their decisions could influence global food security.
A core team of planners representing the sponsoring organizations identified players based on their current and future influence in government, business and international organizations. By design, the game brings together individuals with experience as high-ranking military and defense officials, cabinet-level government leaders, and business and international organization executives.
Armed with these new insights, players will return to their real-world positions ready to identify measures that can foster policy development and initiatives to mitigate future risks to global food security.
A game that's not a game
As a test bed for serious decisions and actions, games provide a range of benefits. Players represent broad and relevant interests, helping mitigate group-think issues that can occur within any government, business or organization. As players see the scenario advance in response to their decisions and actions, imagination and creativity take over, which can yield more effective solutions to complex problems with many possible solutions. And, because players drive the solutions against the backdrop of potential consequences, gaming promotes active ownership of problems, as well as the actions each player takes.
Much like the real world, in the game setting players may still encounter asymmetric information and uncertainty if some players choose to collaborate or negotiate with other players without alerting the whole of the player pool. And yet, they are able to better understand how their decisions can influence the decisions and actions of other actors, as well as their impact on the crisis, itself because the findings of the game, usually in the form or a post-game reconstruction and analysis, highlight all of the play dynamics. Players can also gain insight into each other's actions and reactions, leading to innovative collaborations that ultimately may prove more effective than the actions of any single player. Learning in this way also helps shape players' decis