If you’ve ever watched a domino builder set up a chain of pieces so that they each slide across and bump against one another, you know how amazing it is when all the individual pieces fall over in a single, beautiful cascade. That’s the “domino effect,” and it’s what makes domino so fascinating to watch—and a great model for how narrative works.

Dominoes are rectangular, double-sided, clay tiles with a pattern of pips on one side and blank or identically patterned on the other. Each pips is marked with an arrangement of numbers like those on a die. Dominos have a wide variety of uses and are used to play games, both alone or with other people.

A domino is more powerful than you might think, and it can knock over things about a third of its size. A 1983 study by University of British Columbia physicist Lorne Whitehead proved it by showing that a domino can knock over objects that are about five millimeters tall, or about the thickness of a Tic Tac.

Hevesh and her team have found a way to use this power to create massive art installations, including a life-size replica of the Taj Mahal in Bangladesh and a giant domino structure made out of chocolate in the Philippines. She has also worked with the United Nations to help rebuild schools in war-torn areas of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Traditionally, the game begins with each player drawing seven dominoes from a boneyard (the pool of unused tiles). The player who draws the highest double or the highest domino plays first and may play any domino from his hand. The remaining dominoes, if any, are left face down on the table to be drawn from later in the game.

Players must position each tile on the table to match a number on either end of a domino chain that is already in place. The resulting chain then grows in length, with the player who plays a piece that touches both ends of the existing chain as the winner of that round of the game.

Domino’s values are based on the belief that it’s important to listen to your customers. Their commitment to this value is evident in the numerous ways they’ve implemented customer feedback, such as a relaxed dress code and new leadership training programs. They have also encouraged employees to share ideas and opinions through a variety of means, such as a blog where they feature employee-authored articles.

Domino’s software is designed to centralize the code and data for projects, making it easy to track changes and to retrieve any results a project generates. The platform also allows developers to distribute jobs on multiple computers, so the company can quickly scale up its operations and meet demand. Its architecture also enables users to run complex simulations, analyze data and perform diagnostics on the system. This makes it easy to see how a change in one part of the system will affect all other parts.