To the Bedrock
The Garbage Can Model

Organised Anarchy

Cohen, March and Olsen described organised anarchy through three recurring conditions. Preferences are fuzzy because goals shift or conflict. Technology is unclear because people do not fully understand how outcomes are produced. Participation is fluid because different people join each decision. Decisions take place in improvised forums they called garbage cans, formally choice opportunities.

Universities were the original case study. But the description applies to any organisation where the work is emergent, the environment is complex, and management instruments were designed for a simpler system.

The Four Streams

The Garbage Can Model describes organisations as the intersection of four independent streams: problems that need attention, solutions that exist (or are introduced) whether or not a matching problem has been identified, participants whose attention drifts between choice opportunities, and choice opportunities where decisions could be made.

In a rational model, a problem brings participants together to evaluate solutions and decide. In the Garbage Can Model, the four streams meet in choice opportunities without that order. The solution offered may not fit the problem, and the participants present may understand neither.

Three Ways a Decision Gets Made

The model identifies three decision styles. Only deliberation resolves the attached problem.

Deliberation occurs when a problem attaches to a choice opportunity and enough energy accumulates to resolve it. Organisations often assume this is the usual process. The model suggests it is the exception.

Oversight closes a decision without a real problem attached. A meeting produces a recorded decision while the underlying issue remains elsewhere.

Flight occurs when a problem leaves before the choice opportunity resolves. Attention moves on, leaving the problem to migrate without resolution.

Why This Matters

Operating models, governance, reporting lines, and capital allocation often assume that decisions follow a rational process. The Garbage Can Model examines what happens when they do not.

Under high pressure, problems exceed the capacity available to resolve them. Meetings, reviews, and committees close while issues keep moving between them. A steering meeting can turn a status green only for the same issue to appear elsewhere two weeks later under a new label.

This gap between recorded decisions and unresolved problems is a structural property of the system. Better allocation, communication, or individual competence alone cannot account for it.

Explore the Model

Use the taxonomy to identify a pattern, watch a choice opportunity, explore the simulation, or assess your organisation.

Taxonomy The five organisation types and how they are classified Explore Run the model with any parameter combination Assess Answer twelve questions and see your organisation modelled What's a Garbage Can? See the three streams collide in one choice opportunity

References

Cohen, M. D., March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1972). A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17(1), 1–25.