Explore
Run the Garbage Can Model with any parameter combination. Adjust problem difficulty, problem arrival rate, decision structure, and access structure to see how different configurations shape decision-making.
The Garbage Can Model
Choice opportunities (circles) are places where decisions could be made: meetings, reviews, committees. Problems (dots) seek resolution by attaching to a choice opportunity. Decision makers (invisible) allocate energy to the choices they can access each organisational iteration. When cumulative energy meets demand, a choice opportunity closes.
The model’s insight: when problem pressure is high and coordination channels are tighter, more decisions happen by oversight (the choice opportunity closes while problems are elsewhere) or flight (problems leave before the choice opportunity closes). Resolution — genuinely closing the problem — becomes less common. In this explorer, pressure has two levers: problem difficulty (effort per problem) and problem arrival rate (how many new problems arrive each iteration).
Diagnosis
Problem pressure
Coordination pressure
GC Simulation
How to read outcomes: Choice opportunity outcomes are Deliberation, Oversight, and Flight. Problem outcomes are Resolved, Displaced, Adrift, In choice opportunity, and Never entered.
Each run varies slightly. The simulation is stochastic.