What is stigmergy? Thanks for asking!

Stigmergy is a model of coordination and cooperation which was first observed in social insects, but also appears in human behaviour. It is appealing more and more to project leaders as a kind of open network organisation. Ants communicate by laying pheromones along their path, so that other ants can follow them to food or their colony as needed. This constitutes a system called stigmergy. Similar phenomena are noticed in other species of social insects like termites, which use pheromones to construct large and complex mounds by following a simple decentralized rule. Without communicating directly with one another, they are able to create the appearance of joint decision-making. 

How the term "stigmergy" was born?

The term was coined by French biologist Pierre-Paul Grassé in 1959, referring specifically to behaviour of termites. He defined it as: “Stimulation of workers by the project they are implementing”. The term comes from the Greek words stigma, meaning “mark” or “sign” and ergon, meaning “work” or “action”. It expresses the notion that the actions of an agent leave traces in the environment, signs which are then read by himself and other agents, and which determine their further actions. Under the stigmergy model, individuals communicate among themselves, modifying their environment by means of indirect communication. Their communication is transparent, without any imposed rules. A well-known example is Wikipedia. A person starts writing an article and publishes it. Another user may follow, see if the article needs improvement and make edits if they have further knowledge of the subject area.

How does that translate into implementation of a project, for example? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

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