TL;DR: Work coordinates people when its state makes the next useful action visible. Boards, checklists, commits and dashboards reduce direct communication. But the same mechanism can normalise a workaround that skips thought, checks or accountability. Design the traces, not merely the meetings.
Stigmergy is coordination through traces left in the environment.
Pierre-Paul Grassé introduced the idea to explain how social insects produce coordinated behaviour without central direction. One individual acts. The action changes the environment. That changed environment influences what another individual does next.
The environment becomes part of the communication system.
Instead of, “James, please do X after I finish Y,” the system becomes: “I change the shared world in a way that makes the next useful action visible.”
Direct communication scales badly. Stigmergy adds a better design question:
Could the state of the work itself communicate what people need to know?
Termites alter a nest as they build. Subsequent workers respond to geometry, traffic, vibration and other cues already present. Leaf-cutter ants can use leaf caches as signals that influence how labour is divided.
The work changes the conditions for future work. Your organisation already does this:
The artefact carries part of the coordination burden.
Organisations often answer coordination problems with more meetings, emails and reports. Sometimes necessary; frequently compensation for invisible work.
In one organisation, people repeatedly ask: Has procurement approved this? Who owns the next step? Did the customer respond? Has anyone checked the risk?
In another, those states are visible.
The second may appear to communicate less while coordinating better. A good Kanban board can be more consequential than another weekly meeting because it converts invisible work into an observable environment.
In a park, repeated footsteps wear a route across grass. Each step makes it more visible, attracting more walkers. No committee chose it. The trace became coordination.
Organisations have desire paths too: unofficial spreadsheets, workarounds, channels, shared documents, the person everyone asks when the formal process fails, and temporary hacks that become infrastructure.
Managers may see deviations. Better leaders see evidence about where work actually wants to flow.
Do not ask only what the policy says. Ask what the working environment is teaching people to do.
A lesson buried in a review is stored. A lesson that changes the default workflow is operationalised.
A checklist does not merely preserve knowledge; it changes what the next person notices and does. A good knowledge system asks:
This is one route from individual expertise to organisational genius: experience becomes shared capability.
Stigmergy does not distinguish good practice from bad. It amplifies whatever leaves a usable trace.
A shortcut is disciplined effort reduction that preserves intent, evidence and safety.
A shitcut creates speed by skipping thinking, checks or accountability.
Someone discovers a workaround and leaves a modified template. Another person uses it. Then another. Soon nobody remembers it was an exception.
If it removes waste while preserving purpose, the organisation has found a useful shortcut. If it hides errors, weakens a safety barrier or blurs accountability, it has propagated a shitcut.
Use five tests:
This is stigmergy combining with normalisation of deviance. The process changes without a conscious decision to change it.
Emergence is not synonymous with wisdom.
One agent checks an invoice and changes a status. Another sees it and starts reconciliation. A third detects an anomaly and adds a flag. Shared state coordinates the system.
That may be more robust than one giant omniscient orchestrator. But AI will also follow bad traces quickly and consistently. A workaround that a thoughtful human might question can become automated practice at scale.
Before automating a workflow, inspect its traces. Otherwise you may convert a local shitcut into infrastructure.
Termite colonies are not corporations. Humans interpret intention, negotiate meaning, exercise power and redesign institutions. Stigmergy is one mechanism among many. It does not replace conversation, planning, expertise or judgement.
Even insect coordination is more complex than early stories implied. Geometry, physical cues, traffic and individual differences matter too.
Not everything emergent is stigmergic, and not everything stigmergic is desirable. Leadership must design the environment so useful coordination emerges and dangerous drift becomes visible early.
Take one recurring workflow and ask:
Do not automatically add another meeting. First redesign the shared environment so the state of work carries more of the coordination burden.
What behaviour is our organisation’s environment currently teaching people to repeat?
Explore the Decision-Making and Team Operating System, or start a conversation about mapping the traces, shortcuts and shitcuts in one critical workflow.