&gt; Self-organization by the way of deciding what to do just based on the current state of the local context<p>Isn&#x27;t this only a problem because the &quot;local context&quot; is limited? Humans can handle really large &quot;local contexts&quot; (otherwise, who&#x27;d make the plan in the non-stigmertic organization?), and we can add a big set of time-dimension information to that context (&quot;here&#x27;s what we&#x27;re trying to achieve and the information we have about best doing that&quot;)<p>In the end, swarm methodologies are about empowering individual agents with intelligence and information such that they &quot;inherently&quot; coordinate and the result of that coordination is the desired, overall effect. &quot;Hire good people, keep them informed, and get out of their way.&quot;<p>But yes. The downside of things that focus on rapid iteration (which is how stigmertic stuff works) aren&#x27;t good at large, single-chunk problems: if you can&#x27;t iterate your way to a solution, these methods won&#x27;t work for you.<p>There are some problems and individuals that are well suited to multiple agents iterating closer to an optimal solution, and there are problems and individuals that aren&#x27;t. The world has me convinced that technology development is the latter and product development is the former: it depends on how quickly I need to adapt to changes beyond my control.