Cellular Automata + Immune System
An interactive simulation exploring how corporate culture, executive support, and risk controls react when teams try out new ideas.
Optimized for larger screens
Some simulations are best viewed on larger screens in landscape orientation, but they might work on your phone. I just don't optimise for them.
Since when do you tell the enemy you have won?
Built With
Overview
Overview
Every organization has a self-defense mechanism — an “immune system” made of risk rules, compliance checks, and middle-management habits. This simulation models what happens when teams test new ways of working: do good ideas gain traction, get shielded by leadership, or get crushed by corporate bureaucracy?
The Legend
The Legend
Standard Operations
Stable, reliable baseline operating within standard procedures.
Exploring Ideas
Testing novel approaches and localized variations.
Exposed to Risk
Visible to risk/compliance officers, lacking evidence to justify itself.
Under Attack
Actively suppressed by risk management or audit controls.
Executive Cover
Shielded from compliance shutdown by leadership sponsorship.
Proven & Adopted
Accumulated enough evidence to become an accepted new practice.
Institutional Scar Tissue
Trauma from past failed initiatives. Highly sensitive to new change.
Operational Collapse
Lost all functional capacity; abandoned or broken process.
Scenarios
Scenarios
Viral Idea
When executives mandate a hype trend across the company without real proof or local testing, it spreads like wildfire — disrupting core work until teams burn out and operations break down.
Resistance to Change
Scarred by past failed projects, the organization panics at the slightest change. Compliance officers overreact, surrounding teams with red tape until normal work grinds to a halt.
Innovation Theatre
Leaders demand innovation, but teams have seen too many short-lived initiatives fail. Everyone pretends to participate while secretly waiting out the mandate until things return to normal.
Stagnant Decline
Teams play it safe and never try anything new. To avoid scrutiny, they stick strictly to outdated methods — until hidden technical debt builds up and entire departments quietly collapse.
Autoimmune Storm
A small mistake triggers an overreaction. Fear from past failed projects causes compliance rules to snowball, eventually shutting down healthy teams doing normal work.
Stealth Pathogen
The company looks healthy on the surface, but underneath, years of avoiding risk have created fragile workarounds. A sudden market shock at tick 300 reveals the hidden weakness, causing widespread collapse.
Quarantine Lab
An R&D team is isolated behind a protective barrier (amber line). The lab succeeds in its bubble, but because its learnings never reach the main company, an external crisis at tick 400 eventually drags the whole enterprise down.
Adaptive Network
Grassroots connections (cyan threads) allow teams to share proven ideas directly across silos. By routing around bureaucratic blockers, good ideas gain traction far faster than through top-down mandates.