Good event design (game, seminar or workshop) looks at all those pieces-parts somehow related to the issue at hand. For a complex problem, this could become a dizzying array of factors. Turning to the objective, we can exclude those factors beyond the scale and scope of the event. Of the ones remaining, we ask, “So what?  Why is that particular factor, in light of the objective, important? How are the factors connected?” Factors that do not have significant implications for or weak linkages to the objective are further eliminated or notionalized. Finally we ask of the remaining factors, “Which factors do we want participants to discuss or make decisions about?” and “Which contribute to the participants' decisions, but are outside of what we want them to directly deal with?”

This approach weaves a web of interconnected elements which can be explicitly shown to be relevant to the issue and objective. Like dew drops clinging to a spider web, the outermost part of the web holds those notionalized or abstracted factors which often become "givens" or background information. In the next inward portion of the web cling those elements which will influence or be influenced by our participants’ actions; this is the realm of the white cell or moderator, injects, models and sims, assessment, "higher authority", etc. At the center of the web are the participants and all those elements at the core of the activity. These elements will have the highest level of detail, but be fewer in number than those factors in the rest of the web. 

The web works for a variety of reasons; along with being able to show the connection to the objective, it keeps all the factors in a delicate balance. The factors of the greatest importance resident in the smallest central portion of web, while those of lesser importance are located out in the broader areas of the web’s periphery. Like the spider, our participants are able then to concentrate on the convergence of elements at the center of our investigation, vice crawling over the entire web wasting precious time jumping from factor to factor.  

Once constructed, the web is stable. If new factors are to now be added to the web, they must be carefully analyzed to see if and where they connect. If sufficient connections cannot be found, the new factor should be allowed to fall away. Forcing any factor into the web without sufficient understanding of it role risks tangling the entire structure and leaving the chances of a successful game, seminar or workshop in tatters. The smart spider scurries away at this point!