The Three Dimensions
Problem Pressure (Difficulty + Arrival Rate)
How much pressure the organisation carries relative to its capacity to process it. Pressure combines problem difficulty (effort per problem) and problem arrival rate (new problems per organisational iteration). High pressure means more problem-demand than the system can absorb.
Decision Structure
Who gets to participate in which choice opportunities. This determines how energy (attention, effort) is distributed across choice opportunities.
Access Structure
Which problems can reach which choice opportunities. This determines whether problems find choice opportunities where they could be resolved.
The Classification Grid
The combination of decision structure and access structure determines the organisation type. Problem pressure affects how severely the pattern manifests but does not change the type.
The five labels used in this site are diagnostic clusters derived from Garbage Can dimensions. They are practical interpretation labels for this module, not replacements for the original model.
| Open access | Hierarchical access | Specialized access | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open participation decision | Complexity-Informed | Inverse Mix | Inverse Mix |
| Hierarchical decision | The Mix | Coherent Traditional | The Mix |
| Specialized decision | Inverse Mix | The Mix | Siloed |
Some decision/access combinations intentionally map to the same cluster in Explorer and Assess.
The Five Types
The Coherent Traditional Organisation
Hierarchical decision · Hierarchical access
The organisation is what it believes itself to be. Problems reach the choice opportunities designed for them. Decisions are made by the people with the authority to make them. The instruments of traditional management (governance structures, reporting lines, sanctioned choice opportunities) are reasonably well matched to the work being done. The Garbage Can Model has limited explanatory power here.
The Complexity-Informed Organisation
Open participation decision · Open access
The organisation has rejected the decomposable worldview, at least in practice. Problems surface wherever they can find a choice opportunity. Participation is fluid and expertise-driven rather than seniority-driven. This is not disorder — it is a different kind of order, one that the Garbage Can Model describes well. The risk is not anarchy but invisibility: when everything is permeable, it becomes difficult to know which decisions were actually made, by whom, and whether the underlying problem was resolved or merely displaced.
The Mix
Hierarchical decision · Open or Specialized access
The organisation has inherited the instruments of a decomposable worldview: governance structures, reporting lines, sanctioned choice opportunities. It applies them to a system that does not behave decomposably. Problems surface everywhere because the work itself is emergent. But decisions are made hierarchically, because the management frame requires it. The result is a permanent structural gap: problems live where the work is, decisions are made where the authority is, and the two rarely occupy the same room at the same time.
The Inverse Mix
Open participation or Specialized decision · Hierarchical or Specialized access
The organisation has open, fluid decision-making: in principle, anyone can weigh in. But the problems that reach choice opportunities are filtered before they arrive. Important issues that originate at the edges of the organisation travel slowly or not at all toward the choice opportunities where they could be addressed. The people in the room are willing to decide. The problems that most need deciding rarely make it through the door.
The Siloed Organisation
Specialized decision · Specialized access
The organisation has partitioned itself: problems are assigned to designated channels, people are assigned to designated choice opportunities. On paper this looks like clarity. In practice it means that problems which do not fit their designated channel have nowhere to go. The work that falls between the silos has no legitimate choice opportunity. It either disappears from view or creates informal decision-making that the organisation cannot see or govern.
Explore Further
See the model in action or assess your own organisation: